Chapter 2 - THE BLOODLINE SECRET😱 SHE WASN'T JUST A HOUSEKEEPER! THE MAID'S REAL IDENTITY DESTROYS EVERYTHING HE KNEW ABOUT HIS LATE WIFE! 🔥
The secure safehouse in downtown Chicago smelled of stale coffee and gunpowder. Outside, federal cruisers circled the block, sirens muted against the heavy rain.
Gabriel sat at a metal table, his hands wrapped around a glass of neat bourbon he hadn't touched. Across from him stood Hannah Bennett. She had shed her housekeeper’s apron for a dark tactical jacket. Beside her, little Lucy sat on a folding chair, quietly swinging her legs and humming a melody that made Gabriel’s stomach twist.
It was the same lullaby Gabriel’s late wife, Clara, used to sing to Leo before she died in a car bombing eight years ago.
"You owe me answers, Agent Bennett," Gabriel said, his voice deadly quiet. "Or whoever you really are."
Hannah pulled a worn, leather-bound notebook from her pocket and tossed it onto the table between them. "I was an undercover operative assigned to Rowan Freight three years ago, Gabriel. But my assignment started long before the FBI gave me a badge."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "Meaning?"
"Look at the photograph on page twelve," Hannah said softly.
Gabriel reached out, his hand unusually unsteady. He flipped the page. A faded color photograph tumbled out. In it, a young Clara stood on a beach, her arm locked around a woman who looked identical to her—except for a distinctive crescent-shaped scar above her right eye.
The woman with the scar was standing right in front of him.
"Clara was my twin sister," Hannah revealed, her voice cracking for the first time. "Fourteen years ago, when you brought Clara into your world, Evan Cross realized who she was. She wasn't an orphan, Gabriel. She was the daughter of Senator Thomas Vance—the man who was actively trying to destroy your father's criminal network."
Gabriel felt the room tilt. "Clara never said..."
"Because Evan threatened to kill her father if she told you!" Hannah slammed her hand on the table. "Evan arranged the marriage between you and Clara to keep Senator Vance leash-bound! And eight years ago, when Clara discovered that Evan was stealing millions from Rowan Freight, he sabotaged her car. He murdered my sister, Gabriel. And he made you believe it was a hit by the Moretti family!"
Gabriel stood up so fast his chair crashed to the floor. The rage inside him burned hotter than a furnace. "Fourteen years... I called him my brother. I waged a five-year war against the Morettis because he told me they killed my wife!"
"And while you were fighting the Morettis," Lucy’s small voice interrupted from the corner, "Mr. Evan was putting money into a bank in Switzerland."
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Gabriel looked at the eight-year-old girl. "How do you know that, Lucy?"
Lucy pointed to her head. "Because Mr. Evan talks to himself when he thinks nobody is listening. He always says the numbers out loud before he types them into his satellite phone."
