Chapter 6 - The Auditor’s Trail
The iron taste of copper and panic flooded the kitchen air as I looked at the dark stain spreading across Gabriel’s shirt. The quiet rhythm of cooking, the sarcastic banter with Salvatore, the careful boundaries I had drawn to protect my pride—all of it shattered in a single heartbeat.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, my voice barely a whisper above the hum of the refrigerator. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I gripped his forearm to anchor him. “Gabriel, we need to stop that. We need to call an ambulance.”
“No hospitals,” Gabriel breathed out, his teeth gritted as he shifted his weight against the marble counter. A line of sweat glistened on his forehead. “An ambulance brings reports. Reports bring questions. The men who came through that gate didn't come to kill; they came to send a message. And they used a key to get in.”
My mind raced backward, slamming into the memory of the past three weeks. The quiet estate, the security systems, the heavy iron gates, and the man who had audited the accounts.
“The auditor,” I said, the words heavy and cold as lead. “The man who gave me your card. The man you trusted.”
“Leo,” Gabriel muttered, his dark eyes flashing with a dangerous, controlled fury. “He’s handled my father’s books for a decade. He knew every cipher, every account number, every blind spot in the estate’s security. He didn't just give you my card at random, Tessa. He watched you at Ilvento. He knew you spoke Sicilian, and he engineered the entire thing.”
The room seemed to tilt sideways. All this time, I thought my sharp tongue, my sudden fluency, and my stubborn pride had landed me in this world of high-stakes shadows through pure, chaotic coincidence. But I hadn’t blundered into the Rossi household by accident. I had been delivered.
“He used me,” I whispered, a sudden wave of humiliation burning hot behind my eyes. “I was just a Trojan horse. I spoke the dialect, I unlocked your father’s grief, I made him human again—all so someone on the inside could lower your guard.”
“No,” Gabriel said sharply, his hand suddenly closing over mine with a surprising grip, stopping me from pulling away. He looked straight into my eyes, his gaze fierce and absolute. “You weren't a tool, Tessa. Leo calculated your pride, your debt, and your background, but he miscalculated you. He didn't expect you to actually reach my father. He didn't expect you to care.”
“Care?” I laughed, a bitter, breathless sound. “Gabriel, your father is a mob boss, you run a syndicate, and someone you trusted just bled you out in your own kitchen because of a trap I walked right into.”
“And yet,” Gabriel whispered, his face inches from mine, “you’re still standing here trying to patch me up instead of running out the front door.”
Before I could answer, a heavy thud echoed from the front hallway, followed by the sound of Salvatore’s cane striking the floor with rhythmic, furious anger.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Salvatore appeared in the kitchen doorway, his white hair disheveled, his eyes burning with a terrifying, ancient fire. He looked past Gabriel, his gaze locking onto the blood on his son's shirt, and then onto me.
“The cowards fled through the garden,” Salvatore rasped in Sicilian, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and adrenaline. He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “And you, girl. You brought the wolf into the fold, didn't you?”
“I didn't know,” I said, my voice steadying as I met the old man’s fierce glare, refusing to shrink back. “I swear to you, I didn't know.”
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Salvatore stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, slowly, a grim, solemn nod cut the tension.
“I know you didn't,” Salvatore muttered. He shifted his gaze to his bleeding son. “Gabriel. Call the lawyers. And call Marcus. It’s time to see what else Leo left out of the ledgers.”
