Chapter 3
I wanted to reject that immediately.
Not because I trusted Celeste more than Gabriel.
Because accepting it meant revisiting the worst decision of my life.
Eight years earlier, our father summoned us after midnight.
A camera showed Gabriel entering the west basement corridor.
Ten minutes later, a rival associate appeared through the service door.
Then Gabriel handed him an envelope.
That was the image.
Clear.
Simple.
Damning.
Gabriel said the man was not a rival.
He said the envelope contained medical money for the man’s sister.
Father called it insulting.
Alistair Ward provided additional testimony.
He claimed Gabriel had been meeting the same people for months.
I believed him.
Why?
Because Alistair had stood beside our father for twenty years.
Gabriel was reckless.
Hot-tempered.
Constantly challenging authority.
The accusation fit the story we already told about him.
That was enough.
It should not have been.
Gabriel placed the reel projector on the library desk.
Rafe found an old unit in storage.
We watched.
The original footage began twenty minutes earlier than the version our father saw.
Alistair Ward entered the corridor first.
He met the supposed rival.
Spoke with him.
Then left.
Minutes later Gabriel arrived carrying the envelope.
The man hugged him.
Not conspiratorial.
Grateful.
Then Gabriel left.
No secret exchange.
No coded meeting.
No betrayal.
Just context removed.
I felt sick.
“Why keep this?” I asked.
Gabriel gave a bitter laugh.
“Because men like Alistair don’t destroy originals. They keep them to remember how clever they were.”
Maybe.
Then I asked the harder question.
“How did you find it?”
Gabriel had spent years away from Ashford.
Worked under another name.
No revenge campaign.
Then six months ago, one of Alistair Ward’s former housemen contacted him.
Alistair had died.
His private storage was being emptied.
The old man remembered the cigar box because Alistair had forbidden anyone to touch it.
Gabriel recovered it.
“Why wait six months?”
His face hardened.
“Because I didn’t know if you’d believe me this time.”
Fair.
Then:
“Why tonight?”
He looked toward the library doors.
“Because Celeste called me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Three weeks ago.
She told Gabriel she knew the truth.
She offered reconciliation.
Said she could help him return quietly after the engagement.
Gabriel did not trust her.
So he asked one question.
Why had her father framed him?
Celeste answered.
May you like
Because separating the Ashford brothers gave the Ward family the one position they had never been able to earn.
Closest to the future boss.
