Chapter 12 - The Voice Behind the Locked Door
For the first time since the operation, Dante dreamed of the bombing without waking in terror. He remembered the smell of wet asphalt and Gabriel shouting through a half-open car window. He remembered reaching for the door handle. Then the memory broke apart into smoke and a high ringing sound.
He told Dr. Miriam Shah about it the next morning. She did not encourage him to chase the images. Trauma, she explained, could produce vivid recollections that felt complete but were not necessarily reliable. The investigation would rely on records and corroborated testimony, not on his dreams.
“I want to remember everything,” Dante said.
“I know. But recovering isn't an interrogation. You don't owe anyone a perfect memory.”
Dante left with a treatment plan, a headache diary, and the uncomfortable knowledge that healing would not follow the pace of the police investigation.
At the rented house, Anna was preparing Sophie's lunch when the girl asked why Dante's brother had been gone so long. Anna had not told her about the forged death certificate, but Sophie had overheard Gabriel's name.
“Sometimes adults hide things because they're frightened,” Anna said. “That doesn't make hiding them right.”
“Is his brother scared?”
“Maybe.”
Sophie considered her sandwich. “Then somebody should tell him he can come home.”
Anna kissed the top of her head. She wished it were that simple.
Detective Ortiz called that afternoon with a lead from the security footage. The vehicle's license plate was false, but its route passed through a toll camera near a shuttered private rehabilitation hospital in New Jersey. The building had once been operated by a subsidiary of Asterion Care. Ortiz's team obtained a warrant and coordinated with local officers.
Dante was asked to remain available for a controlled phone call. Gabriel had used a childhood signal; investigators hoped Dante could persuade him to surrender safely if contact was established.
At 4:17 p.m., the call came.
“Dante?”
The voice was rougher than Dante remembered. He closed his eyes.
“Gabriel.”
“Don't say my name again. Victor's listening.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere with too many doors. He says if I leave, he'll tell the world I ordered the bombing.”
“Did you?”
A long silence followed. Anna, sitting across from Dante, watched his face. He was asking the question nobody wanted to ask, and giving his brother room to answer.
“No,” Gabriel said. “But I signed papers after they drugged me. I don't know what I signed. They used my name on the company records. They made me practice your signature.”
“Listen to me. You don't have to prove anything on this call. Tell the police where you are.”
“I can't. Owen's outside the room. He thinks I still believe Victor is protecting me.”
A muffled sound interrupted him. Gabriel lowered his voice. “There are two other patients here. One's a woman. She keeps asking for her daughter.”
Ortiz, listening on a secure line, wrote something quickly. Dante held his breath.
“Can you see a window?” he asked.
“Just a red exit sign. And a mural of a lighthouse.”
The call ended.
Investigators already knew the old rehabilitation hospital had once housed a pediatric wing decorated with coastal murals. The detail narrowed the search. Ortiz's team entered the building before dawn. They found two patients in locked rooms, both alive and in need of medical care. They also found a makeshift records office, abandoned medication cabinets, and evidence that several people had left in a hurry.
Gabriel was not among the patients.
Neither was Victor.
The rescued woman, an engineer named Dr. Celia Warren, recognized Gabriel's photograph. She said he had been kept in a separate wing and moved between facilities whenever he asked for an attorney. Celia had once worked on wearable patient-monitoring technology for Asterion. She had refused to approve the implanted prototype after discovering that consent forms were being forged.
“Victor said he needed a way to know when Dante was awake and when his medications were wearing off,” she told Ortiz. “The device could transmit limited telemetry. I never saw evidence that it could control his mind. The control came from the drugs, the isolation, and the people around him.”
That distinction mattered. Dante had spent three years fearing that a machine had made him someone else. The truth was both less fantastic and more cruel: people had exploited his injuries, monitored him, and engineered his dependence.
Celia described a second operation. Gabriel had suffered a head injury during the bombing and later received sedating medications while Victor controlled his care. He had been told Dante was dead. When he learned otherwise, Victor claimed Dante had betrayed him and sold their father's businesses to Salvatore.
“Why didn't Gabriel escape?” Dante asked after Ortiz summarized the interview.
“Because they convinced him the outside world was dangerous,” she replied. “And because his medical condition made it difficult for him to know whom to trust.”
Anna watched Dante absorb the answer. He had asked the same question about himself in different words.
Later, Isabella Romano requested a meeting. She had been released from questioning after providing financial records, but her father's attorney was pressuring her to retract a statement. She arrived without her diamond ring.
“I knew the marriage would strengthen our families,” she told Dante. “I didn't know they had fabricated your medical records until after Sophie found the device.”
“You knew I wasn't well,” he said.
“Yes. And I let myself believe the doctors were helping you because the alternative would have meant confronting my father.”
“Are you going to testify?”
Isabella glanced at Anna. “I already have. The prosecutor has the original engagement agreement and the emails. My father offered me shares in the holding company if I could persuade you to sign a new trust.”
Dante studied her. “Then tell the whole truth. Not the version that makes you look innocent.”
“I will.”
When she left, Anna saw grief on Isabella's face, but she did not mistake it for absolution. A person could regret what she had done and still have to answer for it.
That night Gabriel called again. This time the line was clear enough for Ortiz to trace to a roadside motel several counties away. Gabriel sounded exhausted.
“Victor says he's giving me a choice,” he told Dante. “Sign a statement naming you as the mastermind, or he releases files that make me look guilty.”
“Come to the police,” Dante said.
“He says they work for you.”
“Then choose your own lawyer. Choose a hospital Victor doesn't own. I'll stay away if that helps.”
Gabriel breathed unevenly. “You'd let them take me in?”
“Yes. If that's how we get you safe.”
A door opened in the background. Victor's voice came through, calm and familiar.
“Dante. You always were sentimental about the wrong brother.”
Dante stood, his chair scraping the floor.
“It's over, Victor.”
“No,” Victor said. “It ends when Gabriel decides which of you deserves the Moretti name.”
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The line went dead. Seconds later, Ortiz received a photograph of Gabriel standing in front of an industrial warehouse, holding that day's newspaper. A message beneath it read:
COME ALONE OR YOUR BROTHER CONFESSES TO EVERYTHING.
