His six-month-old nephew had vanished, but when Gabriel found him alive in a safe room, the baby was sleeping in the arms of a badly injured woman who knew far too much.

Nobody moved.

Gabriel stayed on one knee beside the couch.

Leo was still sleeping against Mia's chest, one small fist curled against her collarbone.

The only sound in the room was the soft, even rhythm of the baby's breathing.

Mia opened her eyes.

They were darker than Gabriel remembered — or maybe that was the exhaustion in them, the particular flatness that came after a person had been frightened past the point where fear had any meaning left.

She looked at Gabriel first.

Not at Marco.

Not at the door.

At Gabriel.

"Your brother," she said.

"That's the word.

It was your brother."

Gabriel didn't speak.

"Not Daniel." Her voice was hoarse, each word placed carefully, like she was carrying something fragile.

"The other one.

Vincent."

The silence that followed was a different kind than before.

Marco took one slow step backward and put his hand on the door frame.

Gabriel's face had gone completely still.

Not the controlled stillness of a man managing his reaction.

The stillness of a man whose mind had stopped processing because what it had just received did not fit inside any category he had built for the world.

"Say that again," he said.

"Vincent Romano told Sterling's people which SUV Leo was in." Mia pushed herself upright against the arm of the couch, wincing as her injured shoulder took the weight.

"I heard two of them talking outside the door.

One said the tip came from inside the family.

The other one laughed and said the name.

Vincent.

He said it twice."

"You could have misheard."

"I was three feet away through a hollow-core door." She met his eyes.

"I didn't mishear."

Gabriel stood.

He walked to the far wall and stood there with his back to the room.

His hand found the edge of a steel shelf and closed around it.

Marco watched him and said nothing.

Mia looked down at Leo.

She adjusted the coat around him with her uninjured hand, a careful, automatic gesture, the kind a person made when they had been protecting something for so long the motion had become instinct.

"There's more," she said quietly.

Gabriel turned.

"They weren't supposed to keep Leo." Her jaw tightened.

"The plan was to take him, make contact with you, and use him as leverage to force the shipping sale.

That's what they said.

But then one of Sterling's men got on the phone and changed the instructions.

He said the original client had upgraded the arrangement."

"What does that mean?"

"It means someone paid Sterling extra to make sure Leo didn't come back."

The steel shelf bent slightly under Gabriel's grip.

"Vincent," he said.

The word came out flat and airless, like something spoken in a room with no oxygen.

"I don't know if it was him who upgraded it.

I only know what I heard through that door." Mia looked at him steadily.

"But the name they used for the inside contact was the same both times."

Gabriel released the shelf.

He crossed back to the couch and crouched in front of Mia so they were level.

This close, he could see the bruise along her jaw that the dim light had hidden before, and the way she was holding her left arm slightly away from her body, protecting the shoulder.

"You drove a stolen truck through a barrier with a six-month-old on the floor," he said.

"You found a safe house from a three-year-old invoice.

You wrote the name on your wrist before you lost consciousness because you knew someone might wipe it."

Mia said nothing.

"Why?"

She looked at Leo.

"Because he's six months old," she said.

"And because your brother Daniel used to bring him to the office on Friday afternoons and let me hold him while he signed the payroll reports." She paused.

"Daniel was kind to me.

Most people in this organization treat me like a piece of furniture.

He never did."

Gabriel stayed very still.

"I'm sorry," Mia said.

"About Daniel.

I never said that to you directly.

I should have."

Something moved across Gabriel's face that Marco had no name for.

Gabriel stood.

He looked at Marco.

"Where is Vincent right now?"

Marco already had his phone out.

"Gold Coast.

His apartment.

I had eyes on him two hours ago."

"Keep them there." Gabriel looked at the door.

"And get the physician back in here.

She needs her shoulder looked at properly."

"Gabriel." Mia's voice stopped him.

He turned.

"Sterling's men know I got out.

They know I had Leo." Her eyes were steady, even through the exhaustion.

"They don't know what I heard.

But if Vincent finds out I'm here and I'm conscious—"

"He won't."

"You can't promise that."

Gabriel looked at her for a long moment.

"Nobody outside this room knows you're awake," he said.

"Nobody outside this room knows what you just told me.

That includes every person in this building except Marco." He held her gaze.

"You have my word."

Mia studied him the way a person studied a contract they were about to sign without a lawyer present — searching for the clause that would cost them everything.

Then she nodded once and looked back down at Leo.

Gabriel walked out.

In the hallway, he stopped with his back against the wall and pressed both hands flat against the cold concrete.

Vincent.

His brother's son was six months old.

His brother's wife was sedated in a hospital room believing her child was d*ad.

And somewhere across the city, in a Gold Coast apartment with a lake view that Gabriel had paid for, Vincent Romano was waiting to find out if the plan had worked.

Gabriel's phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen.

A text from an unsaved number.

Four words.

*Did the baby survive?*

Gabriel stared at it.