Chapter 3 - The Secret His Mother Remembered
After that night, something between them changed.
Not friendship.
Not yet.
Something more dangerous.
Trust.
Gabriel stopped treating Norah like an employee.
And Norah stopped seeing him only as a monster.
She started noticing things.
The way he lowered his voice whenever Rosa was awake.
The way he remembered every detail about her medications.
The way he kept old photographs hidden in his office.
The way he never celebrated victories.
Only survived losses.
One evening, Rosa woke up unusually clear.
She looked directly at Norah.
“Gabriel isn’t like his father.”
Norah froze.
“What do you mean?”
Rosa looked toward the door.
“He thinks he is.”
A chill moved through Norah.
“What happened to his father?”
Rosa’s eyes became distant.
“Everyone thinks they know the story.”
“Do they?”
“No.”
The older woman grabbed Norah’s hand.
“Gabriel saved him.”
Before Norah could ask more, Rosa became confused again.
The moment disappeared.
But the question remained.
What really happened years ago?
---
That night, Norah found Gabriel in the library.
“You know your mother remembers things.”
His expression immediately hardened.
“What did she say?”
“She said you saved your father.”
The room became silent.
Gabriel looked away.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”
“That sounds like something guilty people say.”
His eyes snapped back.
“You think I killed my father?”
“I think you carry that belief.”
Gabriel walked toward the window.
“My father was murdered.”
Norah waited.
“I was there.”
The confession hung between them.
“I was seventeen.”
For the first time, Norah saw the young man beneath the empire.
A boy who had survived something impossible.
“My father died because I was weak.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Yes, I do.”
Her voice softened.
“Because I’ve spent my entire career watching people blame themselves for things they couldn’t control.”
Gabriel said nothing.
May you like
And for once, he listened.
---
