Chapter 6 – THE GHOST IN THE ROOM

“Give me the ledger, Natalie,” Raymond demanded.

Lily was crying. “I’m sorry, Natalie! He found us!”

Where was Gabriel? Where was Matteo?

“Let her go,” I said, my voice shaking. “She’s just a child.”

“She’s a roadblock,” Raymond snapped. “Just like her mother was.”

I froze. “What?”

Cassandra stumbled out of the front doors, holding her bleeding cheek. “Kill them both, Raymond!”

Raymond looked at me, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “You think my brother’s wife died of a heart defect? Please. A few crushed pills in her morning tea for a month. It was so easy.”

Lily gasped.

They had murdered her mother.

“Gabriel will kill you,” I whispered.

“Gabriel is bleeding out in the woods,” Raymond laughed.

Suddenly, a red laser dot appeared on Raymond’s chest.

Then another on his forehead.

From the shadows of the manicured bushes, thirty armed men stepped out. Matteo’s men.

And walking up the driveway, battered, bloody, but very much alive, was Gabriel.

“You talk too much, brother,” Gabriel said.

Raymond’s face went white. He pulled a knife and held it to Lily’s throat.

“Back off!” Raymond screamed.

Gabriel stopped. His eyes met mine.

I knew what he wanted me to do.

I still had the heavy leather ledger in my hand.

I swung it as hard as I could into Raymond’s ribs.

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