Chapter 4 - The Lake Forest Estate
The Moretti estate was a fortress disguised as an eighteen-century French chateau. Nestled behind twelve-foot wrought-iron gates and sixty acres of dense oak forest, it was heavily guarded by men who wore suits and carried submachine guns beneath their arms.
Dakota moved her mother into the stone guest house on Sunday morning. By noon, a team of three private nurses and a top nephrologist from Northwestern Memorial had arrived, setting up a state-of-the-art dialysis setup that made Dakota’s eyes burn with quiet relief.
At one o'clock, Gabriel’s chief lieutenant, Marco, escorted Dakota to the main house.
The office assigned to her was massive—a panelled library with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a rain-drenched Italian garden. A mahogany desk stood in the center, loaded with four high-end monitors, encrypted servers, and three thick stacks of physical ledgers going back seven years.
On the corner of the desk sat a fresh bakery box from Lutz Cafe.
Dakota opened it. Inside were six oversized, fresh glazed donuts.
She looked at Marco, who stood near the doorway with his arms crossed. "Did you buy these?"
"The boss ordered them," Marco said flatly. "He said if you were going to be insufferable, you might as well be well-fed."
Dakota let out a short, quiet laugh. She took a donut, bit into it with complete satisfaction, and sat down in the high-backed leather chair. It was custom-adjusted for her height and weight—roomy, solid, and comfortable. Gabriel had noticed her discomfort in the boardroom chair on Thursday. He hadn't said anything, but he had fixed it.
Calculated kindness, Dakota thought, chewing slowly. He wants me compliant.
She pulled up the first server interface and began to work.
For six hours, she vanished into the numbers. To Dakota, financial records weren't just figures; they were a map of human psychology. Fear left small, erratic transfers. Greed left repeated, rounded numbers. Treason left silence—gaps in the record where data had been intentionally deleted.
At seven p.m., the library door opened silently.
Gabriel walked in, wearing an unbuttoned white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick, corded muscle and dark tattoos winding up his wrists. He carried two plates from the kitchen.
He set one down beside her keyboard. It was a grilled ribeye steak with roasted garlic butter and asparagus.
"Eat," Gabriel said, taking a seat in the armchair opposite her desk with his own plate.
Dakota didn't touch the fork. "I thought you didn't employ sloppy people who can't control their mouths."
Gabriel looked at her, his dark eyes unreadable. "I don't. But you've been staring at those screens for seven hours without moving. If you faint from low blood sugar, my audit stops."
"How generous," Dakota murmured, picking up her fork.
They ate in silence for ten minutes. It was an odd, heavy quiet—not uncomfortable, but charged with a strange, magnetic friction. Gabriel watched her eat with an intensity that should have made her nervous, but Dakota simply cut her steak, chewed, and met his eyes whenever he stared too long.
"Find anything?" Gabriel asked, setting his plate aside.
"Your dock foreman isn't acting alone," Dakota said, wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin. "He's taking orders from someone inside this house. The encryption key used to clear the offshore transfers was issued from an IP address inside this building three weeks ago."
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, his entire body turning to steel. "Who?"
"I need two more days," Dakota said. "Whoever it is, they're smart. But they made one mistake."
May you like
"What mistake?"
Dakota pointed at him with her fork. "They assumed you were too arrogant to hire someone smarter than you."
