Chapter 8: The Weight of What Was Owed
At noon, Gabriel went upstairs.
Not to the conference room.
Not to the secure room where Vincent was being held.
To the small sitting room at the end of the hall where Mia had been moved after the physician insisted she needed to lie down for at least two hours.
She was not lying down.
She was sitting at a writing desk near the window with a second laptop open, a plate of food beside her that had been partially eaten, and three handwritten pages of notes stacked under her left elbow.
Gabriel stopped in the doorway.
"The physician said two hours," he said.
"The physician said I should rest my shoulder.
I'm resting my shoulder." She didn't look up.
"I found the Kowalski connection goes back further than I initially thought.
Seven years.
There's a land acquisition in 2017 that looks clean on the surface but the title chain has a gap of eleven days that doesn't—"
"Mia."
She stopped typing.
She looked up.
Gabriel crossed the room and sat in the chair across from her desk.
He was quiet for a moment, looking at the notes, the laptop, the half-eaten plate.
"When did you last sleep," he said.
Not a question, exactly.
"I slept in the safe room."
"That was before you drove a truck through a wall."
"I'm fine."
"Your shoulder has a torn ligament.
The physician was very specific."
"I know.
It hurts." She said it matter-of-factly, the way someone reported weather.
"But Sterling's attorney sent over a document package twenty minutes ago and there are three things in it that don't match the server records from Joliet, which means either Sterling is still hiding something or his attorney doesn't know the full picture, and I need to know which one before your federal contacts—"
"Reyes is handling the federal contacts."
"Reyes hasn't seen the 2017 land acquisition."
"I'll make sure she does."
Mia looked at him.
"You're telling me to stop," she said.
"I'm telling you that you've already done more than anyone had any right to ask of you.
And that the rest of it will be handled." He held her gaze.
"You can let go of it now."
Mia was quiet for a moment.
She looked at the laptop screen.
Then at the notes under her elbow.
Then at the window, where the afternoon light had gone pale and thin over the city.
"I've been doing this since four in the morning," she said.
"If I stop, I'll feel everything I haven't been feeling."
"I know," Gabriel said.
"I'd rather keep working."
"I know that too."
She didn't move for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she closed the laptop.
She sat back in the chair and looked at the ceiling and let out a long, unsteady breath.
Her hands were shaking.
Gabriel noticed it the moment she stopped moving — the fine tremor that had been masked by the constant motion of typing, now visible in the stillness.
He didn't point it out.
He simply stayed in the chair across from her and let the room be quiet.
After a while, Mia said: "Is Leo with his mother?"
"Yes.
Elena was told this morning.
She's been discharged from the hospital.
They're both at the Gold Coast penthouse with the physician and four people I trust."
"Is she all right?"
"She will be." He paused.
"She asked about you."
Mia looked at him.
"She wanted to know who brought Leo home," Gabriel said.
"I told her your name.
She said she wanted to meet you when you were ready."
Mia pressed her lips together.
"You don't have to," he said.
"There's no obligation."
"I want to." Her voice was steady.
"I just — I need a minute."
"Take as long as you need."
She nodded.
Looked at the window again.
"What happens to Vincent?" she said.
"He cooperates with the federal investigation.
He answers for what he did.
Properly, with counsel, through the right channels." Gabriel's voice was even.
"He'll face consequences.
Real ones."
"And Sterling?"
"Sterling delivered his information by three o'clock.
It was useful.
It was also not enough to buy him what he wanted." Gabriel looked at his hands.
"The federal contacts have the server recordings, the financial report, and Kowalski's name.
Sterling and Kowalski will be formally under investigation by the end of the week."
Mia absorbed this.
"It's not finished," she said.
"No.
These things take time."
"But it's moving."
"It's moving."
She nodded slowly.
Outside, a car passed on the street below.
Somewhere in the building, a door closed softly.
The afternoon light shifted.
"I need to ask you something," Gabriel said.
Mia looked at him.
"When this is resolved — the investigation, the legal proceedings, all of it — I'd like you to consider a different role.
Not in the finance office." He was quiet for a moment, choosing the words carefully.
"I need someone who notices when numbers don't add up.
Who watches what other people overlook.
Who understands that people are just a different kind of number." He paused.
"Someone I can trust completely."
Mia was very still.
"That's a significant change," she said.
"Yes."
"It would put me closer to things I've spent three years being kept away from."
"Yes."
"You kept me away from those things deliberately."
"I did.
I was wrong." He met her eyes.
"Not because the danger wasn't real.
But because the decision wasn't mine to make for you."
Mia looked at him for a long time.
"I'll think about it," she said.
"That's all I'm asking."
She turned back to the window.
After a moment, Gabriel stood to leave.
"Gabriel."
He stopped.
"Thank you," Mia said.
"For coming back up here.
You didn't have to."
"Yes," he said quietly.
"I did."
He left her with the afternoon light and the closed laptop and the three handwritten pages of notes she had already written before he arrived.
She was asleep in the chair within twenty minutes.
Marco checked on her at three o'clock and put a blanket over her shoulders without waking her.
He reported back to Gabriel with a single sentence.
"She's out."
May you like
Gabriel nodded.
"Good," he said.
