"They're not taking you," Gabriel said. He took her hand and led her toward a protected service exit.
They moved through the kitchen and into a secured vehicle waiting at the loading dock. The car pulled away from the hotel as Gabriel called Cohen and demanded a full review of the security logs.
Eta sat in the rear seat, clutching her arms. "They found me at the gala. Someone told them, Gabriel. Someone close to you."
Gabriel's jaw tightened. "I'll find the leak."
He took her to his private estate in the Hamptons, a heavily secured property with controlled access and guards around the perimeter.
For three days, Eta stayed inside the glass-walled mansion, watching the ocean churn beneath a gray sky. Gabriel remained the first night and slept in a chair outside her room. By the second day, Mercer Global's problems demanded his attention. The board wanted answers about the gala, the stock was moving, and critical documents needed his signature.
"I have to go to the city for a few hours," Gabriel told her on the third morning. "Cohen is staying here. You're safe."
He kissed her forehead, a brief and careful gesture.
"Trust me, Eta."
"I do," she said, and she meant it.
After he left, Eta tried to work. She had remote access to Mercer Global's records and began reviewing internal communications, looking for the leak. Eventually, she searched for her father's name: Robert Turner.
A file appeared.
Eta frowned. Why would Robert Turner appear in Mercer Global's database? Her father had worked for Titan Logistics, formerly Turner & Co., a completely different midsized company that had collapsed three years earlier.
She opened the file.
It was a due-diligence report dated four years earlier.
Subject: Acquisition of Titan Logistics, formerly Turner & Co.
Buyer: Mercer Global Holdings, through Andromeda LLC.
Notes: Asset value suppressed due to pending litigation against CFO Robert Turner. Strategy: accelerate litigation to lower acquisition price.
Eta stopped breathing.
The report appeared to show Mercer Global helping create financial distress around her father's company before buying it cheaply. It referenced planting evidence of mismanagement. At the bottom of the authorization was a signature that looked like Gabriel Mercer's.
"No," Eta whispered. "No, no, no."
She scrolled further. An email appeared, dated one week earlier and supposedly sent from Gabriel to Preston Callaway.
Keep the Turner file buried. If she finds out we own the company that framed her father, the game is over. She is too valuable to lose right now. Contain the situation.
The world collapsed.
He knew. He had known the whole time. Maybe he was not protecting her because he cared. Maybe she was simply an asset, a brilliant analyst making him billions. Worse, maybe he was the reason her father was in prison.
Eta felt a scream rise in her throat and swallowed it down. Tears blurred her vision.
"Liar," she whispered. "You beautiful, evil liar."
She could not stay in the house. She took her coat and the tablet containing the evidence. She needed distance and independent authorities. She slipped out through a service route she had noticed during her stay and made for the rear gate.
Before she could get far, the gate opened from the outside.
Three men in dark suits stood there. They were not wearing Mercer security uniforms. The man in the center smiled, gold flashing in his teeth.
"Miss Turner," he said, "we have been waiting for you."
Eta turned to run back toward the house. She called for Cohen, but the men reached her first. The struggle was brief. Her vision blurred, and the world disappeared.
Meanwhile, in the helicopter flying toward Manhattan, Gabriel's phone buzzed. It was Preston Callaway.
"Gabriel, don't hang up," Preston said, frantic. "Someone planted a file in your personal server. A fake acquisition report linking us to Robert Turner."
Gabriel went cold. "What are you talking about?"
"It's a forgery. It has your digital signature, but the metadata shows it was inserted this morning. Someone is trying to make Eta think you framed her father. It's a setup."
"Who planted it?"
"The connection traces back to the guest network at your Hamptons estate. Someone inside the property uploaded it to your system so she would find it."
Gabriel's blood froze.
"Turn the helicopter around. Now."
He called Eta. Straight to voicemail. He called Cohen.
"Where is she?"
"She should be in her room, sir. She's been quiet."
"Check. Now."
A pause. Then Cohen's voice returned, shaking.
"Sir, the window is open. She's gone."
Gabriel stared at the gray ocean below. She thought he had betrayed her. She had run directly into a trap.
Eta woke to the smell of salt and rust. She was restrained inside a shipping container beneath a single hanging bulb.