Chapter Fifteen
Gut-twisting outrage tore through him. Jonah could only stare at his sister-in-law as the horror of what she just told him penetrated his brain. How the hell could something like this happen?
He’d been headed up to bed, practically patting himself on the back for another successful day of gathering intel and pushing aside any kind of tender feelings he had for his charge. Yesterday’s kiss had never been mentioned and wouldn’t. It had been an anomaly and one he was determined not to repeat. Gabriella, no matter how charming and beautiful, was his charge, his job, and nothing more.
And now this call had come through destroying all of his carefully built defenses.
He and Kathleen had gotten into the habit of talking with each other every morning before Gabby came down for breakfast. Usually, it was to review what he’d learned the day before.
In less than two weeks, Gabriella had given them information that would have taken years to gather on their own. Once this information came to light, a massive shitstorm was going to come down on dozens of scumbags.
But Kathleen had news now…news that couldn’t wait for their morning call.
On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the very worst news possible, this came in at a stone-solid eleven.
Jonah said again, “You’re sure?”
Tears glittered in Kathleen’s compassionate eyes. “Yes, we’re sure.”
“There’s no way that this could just be speculative…something that they might do in the future? Could the notes have been misconstrued, read the wrong way?”
“I read them myself, Jonah. There’s no other way to interpret the information.”
Jonah rubbed the sudden dull throb at his temple. When he’d asked Kathleen to have someone hack into Antonia Rojas’s patient files to find out why Gabby had been drugged at her doctor’s appointment, he hadn’t had a clue what the reason might be. But this… Holy shit, who the hell would’ve even considered this?
“But who…what…why?”
“I think we can both speculate with some degree of accuracy on the answers to all those questions.”
“The last time we talked, you said that Rojas’s firewall seemed impenetrable. That her computer security was extremely sophisticated. That it could take weeks for Charlie to be able to hack into the records.”
“Another strange thing. And in a way, it makes me believe this even more. Charlie’s been working day and night trying to break in, and then just a few hours ago, there it was. Clear as day. Almost as if the information was put there deliberately. She said it looked as though the entry had been made today.”
“Could this be a trick, a trap of some sort? Could Mendoza have set this up so he could follow a trail that might lead to the person who took his granddaughter?”
“I asked Charlie the same thing. She said she didn’t think so. And even if it were a trap, there’s no way anyone could trace her. Charlie’s the best there is…I believe her.”
As one of Grey Justice’s top investigators and cyberexperts, Jonah had seen the expertise of Charlotte Nolan, aka Charlie, firsthand. She was the best.
“I agree, she is. So the question is, do we believe what she uncovered?”
“I don’t think we have a choice but to assume it’s credible. At the very least, whether it’s true or not, this is something Gabby needs to know, Jonah. ASAP.”
She was right about that. This information couldn’t be ignored or swept under a rug. But holy, holy hell. This was going to devastate Gabby.
“I’m wondering if her cousin did this for her as a favor.”
He gaped at his sister-in-law. “A favor?”
Kathleen gave a rapid shake of her head. “Not the procedure, of course. But revealing the information might be Antonia’s way of helping Gabby the only way she knows how.”
Jonah had a lot of thoughts about Antonia Rojas. None of them good. “If the woman actually did this to Gabby, she deserves to be behind bars.”
“What Antonia did was wrong and horrendous, but from what we know about Mendoza, the man may not have given her a choice. He is beyond ruthless.”
How messed up was it that the more he learned about the Mendozas, the better his own screwed-up family looked?
Jonah didn’t question whether Luis Mendoza could actually be so cruel or selfish. Having seen this type of narcissism and lack of morality in his own father, nothing surprised him. To achieve a goal he was pursuing, Mathias Slater would’ve done the very same thing without the slightest twinge of conscience.
But what was Mendoza’s reasoning? What could be so important that he would do something of this magnitude? What could be so imperative that he had approved something so vile and wrong, so damn invasive, for his own granddaughter?
“Do you want me to tell her?” Kathleen asked.
That would be the easy way out. Let Kathleen deal with the heart-wrenching news of this monumental betrayal. He told himself it would be better coming from a woman, especially one Gabby knew and trusted. But how the hell could he even assign the word better to this? There was no easy way to tell her. Nothing, no matter who told her, could make this better.
“I’ll tell her. She’ll want facts.”
“I’ll send you her cousin’s notes.” Her expression one of sympathy, she asked, “Will you tell her tonight?”
He thought about how happy she’d looked a couple of hours ago, right before she’d gone up to bed for the night. Being able to write down her hopes and dreams instead of holding them in her head had given her a serenity and optimism that showed clearly in her face. She had almost filled up one notebook. He’d found two others for her to use. Soon, she’d have a library filled with everything she wanted to do in her life. And dammit, he wanted her to be able to live out every one of her dreams. But this… Shit, shit, shit. This news would destroy all of that peace. All of her hopefulness would disintegrate.
As much as he hated to deliver the killing blow, he refused to wait. Putting off telling her would be wrong and self-serving. Even waiting until tomorrow morning wouldn’t be right.
“Yeah. I’ll tell her tonight.”