Chapter 7 - THE LEDGER
“I don’t have it.”
Nora said the sentence six times.
Zeo believed her after the first.
Thomas would not.
They reached a safe house in Queens shortly before dawn.
Eli was there with a physical therapist and two guards.
Nora hugged him so tightly he complained.
She cried anyway.
Zeo watched from the doorway.
Something unfamiliar moved inside him.
Envy.
Not of Eli.
Of certainty.
Nora knew exactly whom she loved.
She would work three jobs for him.
Walk into a warehouse for him.
Challenge armed men for him.
Zeo had spent decades surrounded by people who called themselves family while calculating percentages.
Nora possessed more loyalty in one exhausted body than his entire organization.
Later, Gabriel reconstructed Camilla’s movements.
Before her death, she had visited a bank.
Then a pharmacy.
Then Brighton Center.
“She could’ve hidden the drive anywhere,” Gabriel said.
Nora suddenly remembered.
“When she visited me, she touched Eli’s wheelchair.”
“So?”
“She knelt beside him before she left. I thought she was being polite.”
They searched the chair.
Nothing.
Then Eli spoke.
“The pretty lady gave me gum.”
Nora turned.
“What?”
“She said not to tell you because you’d say sugar was bad.”
“Do you still have it?”
Eli pointed toward his backpack.
Inside was a packet of gum.
Beneath the foil was a microSD card.
Gabriel laughed.
“Camilla, you magnificent snake.”
Zeo did not smile.
She had betrayed him.
She had also died trying to correct it.
Life was rarely clean enough to divide people into loyal and disloyal.
Gabriel inserted the card into an isolated laptop.
Encrypted files appeared.
Zeo entered the key.
Names filled the screen.
Politicians.
Detectives.
Port officials.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Criminal captains.
Payments stretching back years.
Nora looked at Zeo.
“You kept records of all this?”
“Insurance.”
“Against everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Including yourself?”
“Yes.”
A folder bore his name.
Nora opened it.
Gabriel protested.
Zeo stopped him.
“Let her.”
Inside were transaction records, property transfers, bribes, extortion payments.
Evidence.
Enough to destroy Zeo too.
Nora looked at him.
“You could delete your folder.”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
Gabriel stared.
“Zeo.”
“No.”
“This ledger can dismantle everything.”
“That’s the point.”
Gabriel stood.
“You built this organization for thirty years.”
“And look what it became.”
“You’re going to surrender?”
“I’m going to end Thomas.”
“By ending yourself?”
“If necessary.”
Nora watched the two men.
Gabriel walked away.
Zeo followed him into the kitchen.
Their argument lasted twenty minutes.
When Zeo returned, Nora was alone.
“You mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He sat opposite her.
“Because you were right.”
“That must physically hurt.”
A faint smile.
“It does.”
Then it vanished.
“I turned people into pieces on a board. Thomas learned from me.”
Nora studied him.
“You didn’t make him betray you.”
“No. But I built a world where betrayal was rational.”
He looked toward Eli’s room.
“I don’t want that world touching him.”
“Or me?”
Zeo met her eyes.
“Especially you.”
Silence stretched.
Nora’s heartbeat accelerated.
She hated that.
This man had ordered violence.
Bought silence.
Built wealth from fear.
He was not secretly innocent.
That would have been easier.
Instead, he was guilty and changing.
Those were different things.
“Zeo.”
“Yes?”
“You paid Eli’s bills.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still angry.”
“I assumed.”
“But thank you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.”
That mattered.
Nora reached across the table.
She placed her hand over his.
Zeo became completely still.
A strange reversal.
In the hospital, Camilla had held his hand for an audience.
Now Nora held it when nobody was watching.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked.
“Because you look like you need it.”
“I don’t.”
“You definitely do.”
His thumb moved across her knuckles.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Then Gabriel entered.
“Sorry to interrupt whatever extremely uncomfortable emotional event this is.”
Nora pulled her hand away.
Zeo glared.
Gabriel placed a phone on the table.
“Thomas made contact.”
A video appeared.
Thomas stood inside Zeo’s mansion.
Behind him were several Rossi captains.
“I know you’re alive, Zeo,” Thomas said.
“I know you have the ledger.”
He smiled.
“Tomorrow night, every family on the East Coast will receive proof that you intend to trade their names for immunity.”
Zeo’s face hardened.
Thomas continued.
“Bring me the drive by midnight, and perhaps I let your little maid keep breathing.”
Nora rolled her eyes.
“He really needs new material.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Zeo almost smiled.
Then Thomas delivered the final line.
“And before you assume I’m bluffing, ask Gabriel why his phone has been transmitting your location to me for the last six hours.”
The video ended.
Silence.
Nora looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked at his phone.
Zeo reached for his weapon.
Then Nora saw it.
A tiny green light beneath Gabriel’s collar.
“Don’t move.”
She stepped closer.
A tracking device had been sewn into the lining of his jacket.
Gabriel stared.
“I’ve worn this since the hospital.”
May you like
Zeo ripped it free.
Then the windows exploded.
