Chapter 6 - The Weight of the Vault
The pixelated image on the satellite screen flickered against the dark, rolling water of the harbor. The safe in Elias’s study—a heavy, steel-encased vault meant to withstand fire, drill, and digital bypass—stood open like a split-open ribcage.
And standing right in front of it, illuminated by the pale, cold glow of the terminal interface, wasn’t Marcus Vance or one of the Merriweather mercenaries. It was Mrs. Gable.
My breath hitched in my throat. I looked from the glowing screen to the woman standing at the helm of the skiff, her hands steady on the wheel, her posture as rigid and professional as it had been since the moment she opened the kitchen door back at the estate.
Elias didn’t shout. He didn’t draw his weapon. He simply stared at the screen, the silence between us growing heavier than the ocean swells beneath our hull.
"You saw her," Elias said, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register that sounded nothing like the panic of a hunted man.
"I saw her," I whispered, sliding closer to Evan on the bench seat as my brother watched, wide-eyed and shivering. "She was right there with us. She helped us escape."
"Did she?" Elias murmured. He turned his dark gaze toward the stern, where Mrs. Gable stood looking out into the fog, her back turned to us. "Or did she make sure we had a clean route straight into the trap?"
"Mr. Baron," Mrs. Gable called out over the rhythmic roar of the twin diesel engines, her voice remarkably calm, untouched by guilt or fear. She didn't turn around. "If I wanted you trapped in that warehouse, I wouldn't have handed you the keys to the secondary skiff before the doors were chained. You might want to ask Miss Hayes why her dead brother's file was sitting at the very top of your private safe."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "What?"
Elias stepped past me, his boots crunching lightly on the damp decking as he closed the distance toward the helm. He stopped two feet behind Mrs. Gable, his eyes fixed on the back of her head.
"Explain," Elias commanded.
Mrs. Gable slowly released her grip on the wheel with one hand, letting the autopilot hold the skiff's steady course through the channel. She reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a manila folder—the exact file that had appeared on the screen seconds before. She didn't hand it to Elias; she laid it flat on the navigation console between them.
"Daniel didn't just save your life three years ago, Elias," she said, her voice carrying a quiet, devastating sorrow. "He saved mine, too. And he left instructions that if anyone ever came looking for his family—if his brother or sister were ever dragged into the underworld he spent his life trying to keep them out of—that file was to be opened."
I stood up, ignoring the sharp ache in my knee, and stumbled toward the console. "What file? What are you talking about? Daniel was a soldier. He died on a contract."
"Daniel wasn't just a soldier," Mrs. Gable said, turning her head to look at me, her eyes lined with decades of hard-earned exhaustion. "He was the internal auditor who tracked the missing funds from the Merriweather syndicate before you even took over the docks, Elias. And the person who authorized his execution wasn't a rival gang leader."
She pointed a gloved finger straight at the open document on the desk.
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"It was Marcus Vance—using your signature."
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