Chapter 5 - The Betrayal Inside His House
The bank was never the real meeting place.
Dante knew it.
So did I.
At 11:55 p.m., I walked toward the bank carrying my father’s key while Dante’s men watched from surrounding buildings.
Nothing happened.
At midnight, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
“Elena Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Subway entrance. Forty-Second Street. Alone.”
The call ended.
Dante appeared from the darkness.
“No.”
“We knew they’d move me.”
“They’re trying to separate us.”
“So don’t let them.”
His eyes held mine.
Something unspoken passed between us.
Trust.
Dangerous, fragile trust.
We entered the subway separately.
I descended first.
Dante followed at a distance.
Then every light on the platform died.
Someone grabbed me.
I screamed.
A gun pressed against my ribs.
“Walk.”
Before I could move, a shot cracked.
The man behind me collapsed.
Dante emerged from the darkness.
“Run.”
We ran.
Men poured onto the platform.
The next three minutes became chaos.
Shouting.
Footsteps.
Metal screeching against rails.
Dante pulled me into a maintenance corridor.
We emerged six blocks away.
A black SUV waited.
Marco opened the door.
“Get in!”
We did.
Only when we were moving did Dante look at Marco.
“How did they shut down the platform?”
Marco’s expression tightened.
“Inside access.”
“Who knew our route?”
“Five people.”
Dante looked at me.
I understood.
There was a traitor.
Back at the penthouse, nobody slept.
Dante locked down the building.
Phones were collected.
Security logs checked.
By morning, suspicion had poisoned every room.
Even Sofia was questioned.
She slapped Dante.
Hard.
Then hugged him.
I sat alone afterward.
Dante found me near the windows.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I frowned.
“Good?”
“I’d worry if any of this started feeling normal.”
He handed me tea.
Not bourbon.
He had noticed I didn’t drink when frightened.
That tiny observation affected me more than it should have.
“Why did you become this?” I asked.
“This?”
“You know what I mean.”
He looked across Manhattan.
“My father died when I was seventeen. My uncle took control. By twenty-one, I understood he was destroying everything my father built.”
“So you took it back.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His silence answered.
I looked away.
“I’m not a good man, Elena.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
His mouth twitched.
“But?”
“But bad men don’t usually warn women not to mistake them for good ones.”
He looked at me then.
Before he could answer, Sofia entered.
“We found something.”
Security footage.
At 10:14 the previous night, someone had accessed the encrypted operation file containing our bank plan.
The login belonged to Marco.
Dante stared at the screen.
“No.”
Marco had been beside him for twelve years.
Friend.
Bodyguard.
Brother in everything except blood.
When confronted, Marco didn’t deny it.
“I accessed the file.”
Dante’s face emptied.
“Why?”
“To check the route.”
“You weren’t assigned route planning.”
Marco’s eyes shifted toward me.
“I don’t trust her.”
Dante moved so fast I barely saw him.
He slammed Marco against the wall.
“You sold us out?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“I can’t.”
Dante pressed his forearm harder against Marco’s throat.
“Try.”
Marco’s face reddened.
Then he said three words.
“Ask your sister.”
Everyone turned.
Sofia went pale.
Dante released him.
“Sofia?”
She looked terrified.
“I can explain.”
My stomach dropped.
It turned out Sofia had been secretly communicating with an FBI agent for six months.
Not to betray Dante.
To escape.
“I wanted out,” she whispered. “Out of this family. Out of guards following me. Out of waking up wondering whether my brother would come home.”
Dante looked wounded in a way bullets probably couldn’t accomplish.
“You could have told me.”
“You would have said no.”
He didn’t deny it.
The agent had promised Sofia immunity and a new identity in exchange for information about Volkov.
But somebody inside law enforcement had intercepted their communications.
That was how Volkov knew our movements.
“Who’s the agent?” Dante asked.
Sofia hesitated.
“Daniel Keene.”
I stared.
“The accountant?”
“He’s not an accountant.”
Everything shifted again.
Keene was undercover FBI.
His disappearance had been staged after Volkov discovered his identity.
The attack on Vespers had been meant to capture me before federal agents could.
“So Keene is alive and free?” I asked.
Sofia nodded.
“Then why tell us to ask about my father?”
“Because he needs the ledger too.”
Dante laughed without humor.
“Everyone needs that ledger.”
I thought about the safe-deposit key.
Then about my father’s words.
Trust nobody.
Suddenly I understood.
“The ledger isn’t at the bank.”
Dante looked at me.
“What?”
“My father knew people would eventually find the account.”
I remembered childhood.
Sunday afternoons.
Dad repairing old things.
One possession he never let anyone touch.
An antique record player.
My breath caught.
“I know where he hid it.”
Three hours later, we returned to my parents’ house.
The record player stood in Dad’s study.
Dante removed the back panel.
Inside was a leather book.
And a cassette tape.
We had found it.
Then Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
Silence.
“Where?”
He hung up.
I knew before he spoke.
“Your father’s gone.”
My blood froze.
“Gone?”
“Someone took him from the hospital.”
My mother had been downstairs getting coffee.
The guard outside Dad’s room had been found unconscious.
On his bed was one message.
THE LEDGER FOR TOMASO.
I gripped the desk.
Dante came toward me.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I need to think.”
“Elena—”
“I said I need to think.”
Because something had become horribly clear.
May you like
Only a handful of people knew we had found the ledger.
And one of them was standing in that room.
