Chapter 5: What the Accountant Knew
Mia was awake when Gabriel came back.
Leo had been moved while she slept — carefully, by the physician, transferred to a proper bassinet that someone had located in the brownstone's storage room.
Mia had apparently woken to find him gone and had been halfway to the door before Marco intercepted her and explained.
She was sitting upright on the sectional now, her injured shoulder properly bandaged, a cup of tea on the table in front of her that she hadn't touched.
Gabriel came in and sat in the chair across from her.
"Leo is in the next room," he said.
"The physician says he's completely unharmed."
Mia let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for some time.
"And Vincent?" she said.
Gabriel looked at her.
"You knew it was him before you told me," he said.
It wasn't an accusation.
It was an observation.
"I suspected.
I didn't know." She wrapped both hands around the tea mug without lifting it.
"Vincent came to the finance office three weeks ago.
He asked me to pull the insurance valuations on the shipping fleet.
Said he was doing a personal review." She paused.
"That's not something a family member does.
That's something someone does when they're preparing to negotiate a sale."
"You didn't report it."
"I had no proof of anything.
He's a Romano.
I'm an accountant." She looked up.
"Who was I going to tell?"
Gabriel was quiet for a moment.
"What else did you notice?"
"Two months ago, a routing document went missing from the secure server.
Not deleted — moved.
To an external partition that shouldn't have had access to it.
I flagged it to the IT manager." She paused.
"He told me it was a system error and closed the ticket."
"Who is the IT manager?"
"Paul Renner.
He's been with the organization for four years." She met Gabriel's eyes.
"He and Vincent play golf together on Sundays."
Gabriel picked up his phone and sent a text with two names.
He put it back in his pocket.
"You've been watching this for two months," he said.
"I've been doing my job for two months.
Watching is what happens when you're quiet enough that people forget you're in the room." She finally picked up the tea.
"I'm an accountant, Mr.
Romano.
I notice when numbers don't add up.
People are just a different kind of number."
Gabriel studied her.
In the three years Mia Carver had worked for the Romano organization, he had approved her hire, reviewed her annual performance reports, and passed her in the hallway perhaps a dozen times.
He had known she was competent.
He had known she was discreet.
He had kept her deliberately insulated from anything that could put her in danger.
He had not known any of this.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
Mia blinked.
Whatever she had expected him to say, it wasn't that.
"You were in that convoy because the audit team needed a vehicle and you were available.
You were taken because my security failed.
You were hurt because of decisions made in this organization that had nothing to do with you." He held her gaze.
"I'm sorry."
Mia set the mug down.
"Your brother Daniel used to apologize too," she said.
"When the payroll system crashed and everyone had to wait an extra day for their deposits, he came to the finance office personally.
He didn't send a message.
He came himself." She looked at her hands.
"I always thought that was unusual for someone in his position."
"It was," Gabriel said.
"You're more like him than you think."
The observation landed somewhere Gabriel hadn't expected it to go.
He looked away for a moment, toward the window where the first grey light of morning was beginning to show at the edges of the curtain.
"Sterling," he said.
"What else did you hear?"
"He has a secondary facility.
Not the warehouse — somewhere else.
One of the men mentioned it when they thought I was too frightened to listen.
A property near Joliet.
That's where Sterling operates from when he doesn't want to be found."
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
"They said something else." Mia's voice was careful now.
"Sterling has been recording his conversations with Vincent for the past six months.
Every meeting.
Every phone call." She paused.
"He told one of his men it was insurance.
In case the Romano family came looking for someone to blame."
Gabriel went very still.
"Sterling has recordings of Vincent."
"That's what I heard."
"Which means Sterling has leverage.
Over Vincent.
Over this family."
"Yes."
Gabriel stood.
"Where in Joliet?" he said.
"I don't know the address.
But one of them mentioned a grain processing facility that Sterling's company acquired eighteen months ago.
It's listed as inactive." She looked at him.
"I can find it.
Give me a laptop and forty minutes."
Gabriel looked at her bandaged shoulder.
Her scraped hands.
The bruise along her jaw.
"You need to rest."
"I need a laptop," Mia said.
"I can rest when Sterling doesn't have recordings that can be used against this family."
Gabriel almost said no.
Then he thought about a woman who had driven a stolen truck through a wooden barrier with a baby on the floor and navigated to a safe house from memory.
He went to the door.
"Marco," he called.
"Get her a laptop."
He heard Marco's footsteps stop in the hallway.
A pause.
"Boss," Marco said carefully.
"Sterling just called the main line.
He says he wants to talk."
Gabriel turned back to Mia.
Her expression hadn't changed.
But her hands had gone very still around the mug.
"He knows I got out," she said quietly.
"And now he's worried about what I heard."
May you like
Gabriel looked at her for one long moment.
"Then let him worry," he said.
