His six-month-old nephew had vanished, but when Gabriel found him alive in a safe room, the baby was sleeping in the arms of a badly injured woman who knew far too much.

Marco's voice dropped.

"Three broken ribs.

Dislocated shoulder.

She set it herself against a warehouse wall before she drove."

Gabriel said nothing.

"The physician wants her transferred to the penthouse medical suite.

She refused.

Said she wasn't moving until Leo was with someone she trusted."

Gabriel looked at Mia's arms still curled around the baby even in sleep.

"She doesn't trust me."

"She doesn't know you," Marco said quietly.

"She knows what you do for a living."

Something shifted in Gabriel's jaw.

He reached down carefully and lifted Leo from Mia's arms.

The baby stirred but didn't wake.

And then Mia's hand — even unconscious — reached forward into the empty space where Leo had been.

Gabriel froze.

Marco watched him stare at that open hand for a long moment.

Then Gabriel did something Marco had never seen in fifteen years.

He reached down and placed two fingers gently into Mia's palm.

Her hand closed around them and stilled.

Marco turned away again.

"There's something else," he said.

"We pulled the convoy manifest.

Mia wasn't supposed to be in that motorcade at all.

Someone switched the transport list forty minutes before departure."

Gabriel looked up slowly.

"Who authorized the change?"

Marco hesitated.

"That's what we can't figure out.

The signature on the order…" He stopped.

"Say it."

"It's yours."

---

Someone used Gabriel's name to put Mia in that van.

DAD LAUGHED at me in front of the entire chapel and told me to walk down...

DAD LAUGHED at me in front of the entire chapel and told me to walk down the aisle by myself because I was marrying a nobody.

My parents threw me out on Christmas morning.

"Your mother isn't sick, Maya.

What he uncovers next will change everything.

Click the link below to read the full story — and find out who really set this up.

Chapter 2: The Name on the Order