🖤💔 PART 2: THE MAFIA BOSS OPENED HIS EYES… AND THE FIRST PERSON HE ACCUSED OF BETRAYING HIM WAS THE WOMAN WHO SAVED HIS LIFE. 🔥🔫

Carmine stood in the doorway, staring at me.

For one terrifying second, I thought he had heard everything.

“What are you doing here, Matilda?” he asked.

I forced myself to sit up, keeping one hand beneath the sheet where Gabriel’s fingers were still wrapped around mine.

“I—I came to say goodbye.”

Carmine smiled.

It was the kind of smile that made my stomach twist.

“How touching.”

Behind him, Dr. Moretti wheeled a black body bag into the room. He refused to look at Gabriel’s face.

That was when I understood something.

The doctor wasn’t grieving.

He was afraid.

“Move away from the body,” Carmine ordered.

I hesitated.

Gabriel’s fingers тιԍнтened around mine once.

A warning.

Or perhaps a plea.

I slowly climbed down from the table, wiping my tears with trembling hands.

Carmine approached Gabriel and pulled the sheet away from his face.

“Look at him,” he murmured. “The great Gabriel Falcone. The man who thought he could control everyone.”

Then he leaned closer.

“Tell me, Doctor. Are you absolutely certain he’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ?”

Dr. Moretti swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because if he wakes up, we’ll both have a very serious problem.”

My blood turned to ice.

Carmine knew.

Maybe not that Gabriel was still breathing—but he knew there was something worth hiding.

And suddenly, I remembered Gabriel’s whispered warning.

Trust no one. Especially the man standing outside that door.

“Carmine?” I said, pretending to be confused. “Why would anyone want to make sure he never wakes up?”

His smile disappeared.

“Curiosity is a dangerous habit for a girl in your position.”

He stepped toward me.

I stepped back.

Then a phone vibrated inside his jacket.

He answered without taking his eyes off me.

“What?”

A pause.

His expression changed.

“Where?”

Another pause.

“Absolutely not. Nobody touches that safe until I get there.”

He ended the call and turned toward the doctor.

“Prepare him for transport. We’re moving the body before sunrise.”

Then he pointed at me.

“And you’re coming with us.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Why?”

“Because,” Carmine replied softly, “you were the last person seen near Gabriel before he died.”

He leaned close enough for me to smell the mint on his breath.

“If anyone asks questions, sweetheart, you’ll be the perfect explanation.”

I understood what he meant.

They would blame me for Gabriel’s death.

And if I tried to tell the truth, no one would believe a poor maid over Chicago’s most powerful underboss.

Unless Gabriel woke up.

Unless I could get him out of that room.

As Carmine turned to speak with the doctor, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my uniform and felt the small object Gabriel had pressed into my palm beneath the sheet.

A key.

Its metal tag carried three engraved words:

FALCONE — PRIVATE ARCHIVE.

I had no idea what it opened.

But something told me Carmine was terrified of whatever lay behind that door.

And I was about to discover why.

At 4:37 A.M., the hospital corridor descended into chaos.

A nurse shouted that the security system had failed. Two guards hurried toward the elevators. Somewhere downstairs, an alarm began to ring.

Carmine swore and rushed out of the room, ordering the doctor to stay behind.

It was the only chance I was going to get.

I locked the door.

Then I ran to Gabriel.

“Mr. Falcone, please,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder. “I know you’re in there. You have to wake up.”

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then his eyelids fluttered.

His eyes opened just a fraction.

They were bloodsH๏τ, unfocused, and filled with pain.

But they were alive.

“Matilda?” he rasped.

I nearly collapsed with relief.

“Yes. It’s me.”

He tried to move, but his face тιԍнтened with pain.

“Don’t let them take me.”

“I won’t.”

His gaze shifted toward the door.

“Carmine?”

I nodded.

Gabriel closed his eyes briefly, as though the name alone exhausted him.

“Then we’re already too late.”

“What do you mean?”

He struggled to speak.

“The poison… it wasn’t meant to kill me immediately. It was designed to stop my heart long enough for the doctors to declare me ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“Why would someone do that?”

His eyes returned to mine.

“Because a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ man can’t testify.”

“Testify about what?”

Gabriel caught my wrist.

“Twenty-three years ago, my father disappeared. Everyone believed he was murdered by a rival family. But three nights ago, I discovered he was alive.”

I stared at him.

“What does that have to do with you?”

“Everything.”

He drew a shallow breath.

“My father left evidence behind. Evidence that could destroy the Falcone empire—and expose the people who built their fortunes on innocent blood.”

“Carmine?”

Gabriel didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at the key in my hand.

His expression changed.

“Where did you get that?”

“You gave it to me.”

“No,” he whispered. “I couldn’t have. I was unconscious.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Then who—?”

Gabriel stared at the key as if it were a ghost from his past.

“That key opens my father’s private archive. I thought it had been destroyed twenty years ago.”

He grabbed my hand more тιԍнтly.

“Listen to me, Matilda. If Carmine discovers you have that key, he won’t stop until he finds what’s inside.”

A sudden knock shook the door.

“Matilda!” Carmine called. “Open it. Now.”

Gabriel tried to sit up, but his strength failed him.

I helped him back against the pillow.

“Where is the archive?” I whispered.

“Beneath the old chapel at my estate.”

“Then that’s where we’re going.”

He stared at me in disbelief.

“You don’t understand. Everyone who has searched for that archive has disappeared.”

I swallowed my fear.

“Then perhaps it’s time someone found out why.”

For the first time since waking, Gabriel looked at me not as a servant, not as a witness, but as someone whose courage he hadn’t expected.

“You should have left me alone on that table,” he murmured.

“Perhaps.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I thought of the man who had defended me when everyone else laughed.

“Because you once reminded an entire room that I was a human being.”

His expression softened.

Then he whispered something that made my heart stop.

“Matilda… there’s something you don’t know about yourself.”

Before I could ask what he meant, the door shuddered under a violent blow.

Carmine had stopped knocking.

He was breaking it down.

Gabriel seized my hand.

“When we escape,” he said, “you must never tell anyone your mother’s maiden name.”

I stared at him.

“How do you know anything about my mother?”

His face went pale.

“Because twenty-six years ago, she was the last woman my father ever loved.”

The door burst open.

Carmine stood in the wreckage, holding a pistol.

Behind him were two armed men—and Dr. Moretti, whose face had turned completely white.

Carmine looked at Gabriel.

Then he looked at me.

For the first time in my life, Chicago’s most ruthless underboss appeared genuinely frightened.

“That’s impossible,” he whispered.

Gabriel slowly raised his head.

“No, Carmine.”

His voice was weak, but the old authority had returned.

“The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ have a way of coming back when the wrong people celebrate too soon.”

Carmine raised his weapon.

But before he could speak, Dr. Moretti suddenly stepped forward.

“Don’t shoot him!” the doctor cried. “You still don’t know what he remembers!”

Silence swallowed the room.

Carmine turned toward him.

“What did you just say?”

The doctor backed away, shaking.

Gabriel looked at him with sudden recognition.

“You,” he whispered. “You were there that night.”

“Gabriel, please—”

“You helped them bury the truth.”

The doctor’s lips trembled.

Then he said six words that changed everything.

“Your father wasn’t the only survivor.”

Gabriel went completely still.

I felt his hand тιԍнтen around mine.

“Who else survived?” he demanded.

The doctor looked at me.

Not at Gabriel.

At me.

“Her mother.”

Before anyone could move, the hospital lights went out.

A gunsH๏τ thundered through the darkness.

Someone screamed.

And when the emergency lights flickered back on, Carmine was gone.

So was Dr. Moretti.

Gabriel was still beside me, breathing painfully—but the key had vanished from my hand.

On the floor lay a folded piece of paper.

I picked it up.

Five words were written across it in red ink:

ASK YOUR MOTHER ABOUT THE TWINS.

I turned toward Gabriel.

He was staring at the message as though he had just seen his entire world collapse.

“Matilda,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Did your mother ever tell you that you were born with a twin?”

My mouth went dry.

Because all my life, my mother had told me I was an only child.

But hidden inside my old birth certificate, I had once found a second name—crossed out so violently that the paper had nearly torn.

I had never understood why.

Until now.

Gabriel closed his eyes.

And when he opened them again, he looked at me with an expression I would never forget.

“Your missing twin,” he whispered, “may be the person who tried to kill me.”

💔🔥 WHO IS MATILDA’S TWIN—and why has Carmine spent twenty-six years making sure the truth never comes out?

Part 3 will reveal the secret behind the Falcone family, the missing twin, and the shocking reason Gabriel was never supposed to survive that night… 🖤🔫