Page 86 of Not Mine to Keep

“And?” I swallowed, my nerves unable to handle the wait.

“The hacker who altered the footage was too good, so he reached out to an old SEAL contact of his, and they connected him with a former CIA officer who could help. She’s here in New York. She and herhusband met up with him this morning, and she successfully unfucked the footage to its original state.”

“Skip the boring details and the suspense and get to the point. What’d Gabriel do?” On my feet now, I lost my patience at Constantine’s lack of response. “You didn’t see him do anything, did you?”

“He wanted to hide the fact he was in Rome. What if he met with Esposito?” Constantine proposed, and I knew he didn’t like the guy, and with good reason given the man’s boss, but now my brother was grasping at straws. “Gabriel was in Rome the weekbeforehe called you to go to Nashville, and it’s possible—”

“He sold out Calliope to Esposito,” Izzy finished for him. “It was someone from Gabriel’s team who questioned the guard in Nashville and got the name Esposito in the first place. Gabriel could’ve been working with the guard and had him silenced so he couldn’t turn on him.”

I bowed my head, trying to process their accusation. “Other people live in Rome, you know. He could’ve been there for Armani, and Armani hid Gabriel’s tracks for a reason.”Am I really defending a criminal?

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need to consider the possibility Gabriel set everything in motion from the get-go. He chose Esposito to frame, knowing what Armani would do when he found out,” Constantine went on, not considering my pathetic efforts to clear Gabriel’s name.

“Maybe Gabriel somehow madeMarcellothink bringing Rocco into the picture was his idea—because with Rocco in this mess, he knew it’d guarantee our involvement, as well as The League’s,” Izzy said, keeping the Gabriel-being-guilty train rolling, and I was ready to pump the brakes.

“Now you’re just reaching, dammit.” I stood tall and shrugged off my jacket; it was too damn hot in there.

Izzy met my eyes, a request to, at least, listen to the theory. But that’s all it still was—and a stretch at that. “Those men in the park only came after her when you were with them, and Gabriel knewyou could handle them and protect her. This whole thing could be Gabriel’s power-grab moment. He admitted as much to you on night one. He just left out the fact he put everything in motion to ensure he takes over and has The League’s protection, too.”

“The favor I owed him is a four-year-old one. He couldn’t have planned things out this perfectly.”I don’t think.

“The man’s patient,” Constantine said, “and you know that. When the opportunity presented itself with Calliope’s existence being discovered, he more than likely began setting everything in motion the day of her mother’s funeral.”

“I have to talk to him. He can clear this up.” I went to grab my phone, but Constantine got to it first, stopping me.

“Even if Gabriel set everything in motion,” Izzy started, “at the end of the day, isn’t he still the—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it,” I begged her. “Ifhe’s behind this, he could’ve gotten Calliope killed in the park that day. And then we killed people he framed. So no,ifthis is true, he’s not the lesser of two anything. He’s just as fucking bad.” I turned to Constantine, my shoulders falling. “You suspected this theory from the beginning, didn’t you? It’s why you pushed Hudson to dig deeper.”

His quiet, signature apologetic look was all he gave me for an answer.

“What do we do now, then?” Izzy asked, and I looked over at her, feeling torn apart, and I’d already been in bad shape before this news.

“We keep an eye on Gabriel now, too, not just Rocco,” Constantine said steadily. “And we still go through with the plan for the party. Only we might just need to kill a few more people than we originally planned.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Alessandro

“Sir, the jet is ready. We’re set to fly out.” My head of security, Javier, stood in the doorway of my office, only two hours after I’d learned the theory about Gabriel. I still wasn’t ready to bite. Innocent until proven guilty in my eyes.

“If you’re here, that means so is my wife.” He had instructions to never let her out of his sight.

“Yes, sir. But she insisted on coming up instead of waiting in the car. She ran into your father by the elevators. He’s with her now.”

Shit.On my feet, I circled my desk and made a quick exit to save her from whatever nightmare of a conversation my old man might put her through.

When I spotted the two of them talking, what I hadn’t expected was to see my dad laughing, and she was still talking, speaking quickly with her hands. Also, what in God’s name was she wearing?

I went still, and Javier slammed into me at my abrupt stop. “Sorry, sir.”

Looking back over my shoulder, I reminded him, “How many times have I told you to drop the sir? You’re older. Did two more tours of duty than I did, had a higher rank, plus have a Purple Heart. I should be sir-ing you.”

Javier smirked, then came up next to me. I planned to hang back and continue watching the scene unfold between Calliope and my father, since they’d yet to realize they had eyes on them. “Can I speak candidly?”

“When have you not?”

“I’m glad you’re taking her on this trip. The whole team has been listening to her practicing for the last week, and she has a voice that should be shared, heard by more than just us. And you have my word I won’t let anything happen to her.”

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