Chapter 3 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE LEDGER
I didn't open the door.
Instead, I backed away quietly and grabbed the emergency bag hidden beneath my bed.
My passport, cash, spare phone, and the documents Elias had prepared were still inside.
The man outside knocked again.
“Ms. Jenkins? We know you're home.”
I didn't answer.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
Don't go through the front door. They're not Rossi soldiers.
I stared at it.
Another message followed.
Use the fire escape. I'm across the street.
I moved toward the kitchen window.
Across the narrow street, a black sedan sat beneath a broken streetlamp.
A woman occupied the driver's seat.
She raised one hand.
I recognized her immediately.
Isabella Costa.
Taylor's former fiancée.
The woman whose arrival at the gala had destroyed the last remaining illusion I had about my place in his life.
I nearly dropped the phone.
Why was she here?
The knock became louder.
“Open the door!”
I climbed through the kitchen window and descended the fire escape.
The woman in the sedan unlocked the passenger door.
“Get in.”
I hesitated.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because the men outside your apartment work for someone who wants you dead.”
“And you don't?”
Isabella looked directly at me.
“If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have driven three thousand miles to warn you.”
I entered the vehicle.
She pulled away immediately.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally, I asked the question burning inside me.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because Taylor is making a mistake.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He makes mistakes every day. Usually other people pay for them.”
“Not this time.”
Isabella glanced at me.
“He thinks the Morettis kidnapped you. He has already destroyed two of their properties. The situation is becoming uncontrollable.”
“Then tell him I wasn't kidnapped.”
“I tried.”
“What?”
“I told him you left voluntarily.”
My throat tightened.
“What did he say?”
“He threatened to put a bullet through my head if I mentioned your name again.”
I looked out the window.
For three years, I had watched Taylor control entire rooms with a single glance.
I knew his capacity for violence.
But hearing that he had threatened Isabella because she told him the truth felt different.
“Why would he care?”
Isabella didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she reached into the glove compartment and handed me a small flash drive.
“Because of this.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“Something your supervisor left behind.”
My fingers tightened around the device.
“Daniel is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere Taylor can't reach him.”
I wanted to scream.
Three years of believing I had caused an innocent man's death.
Three years of carrying the guilt.
And Isabella knew he was alive.
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because the moment Taylor realized Daniel had survived, he would have hunted him down.”
I inserted the drive into an old laptop she kept in the back seat.
A single folder appeared.
Inside were financial statements, encrypted correspondence, and scanned photographs.
The first document contained the original discrepancy I had discovered.
The second contained a list of payments.
The third contained a name.
RICHARD VALE.
I recognized it.
Richard Vale was the chairman of the private security company that protected Rossi Enterprises.
He had attended the gala.
He had shaken Taylor's hand.
And according to the documents, he had been transferring millions of dollars from Rossi accounts into an independent network for nearly eight years.
“He's stealing from Taylor,” I whispered.
Isabella nodded.
“More than that.”
She slowed the car near an empty warehouse.
“Vale has been financing the Morettis, supplying information to federal investigators, and arranging assassinations against both families.”
I stared at the screen.
The evidence was extensive.
Too extensive for a simple financial theft.
Then I noticed something.
A recurring payment code.
The same code I had discovered three years earlier.
The same code that had made my supervisor disappear.
Except this time, the payments weren't going to an offshore account.
They were going to a private medical facility in Switzerland.
I opened the attached patient file.
My hands went numb.
The file contained Daniel Mercer's photograph.
And beneath it was a medical record dated six months earlier.
PATIENT STATUS: RECOVERED.
“Why was he being treated in Switzerland?”
Isabella looked uncomfortable.
“Because Daniel wasn't just hiding from Taylor.”
“Who was he hiding from?”
Before she could answer, the warehouse lights suddenly switched on.
Three vehicles blocked the road ahead.
Another appeared behind us.
Isabella cursed.
“Get down!”
Gunfire shattered the passenger window.
I dropped to the floor.
Isabella accelerated, but a black SUV slammed into the rear of the sedan.
The car spun violently.
My shoulder struck the door.
Then everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the warehouse floor.
My hands were tied.
Isabella was nowhere to be seen.
A man crouched in front of me.
He wore an expensive charcoal suit and a silver watch.
I recognized him from the gala.
Richard Vale.
He smiled.
“Alex Hayes. You've caused quite a lot of trouble.”
I swallowed.
“Where is Isabella?”
“Safe enough.”
“What do you want?”
He leaned closer.
“The money you stole.”
I frowned.
“I didn't steal anything.”
Vale laughed.
“Of course you did. You simply don't understand what you took.”
He pulled a second document from his jacket.
It contained my signature.
My real signature.
At the bottom was a transfer authorization dated two years earlier.
I had never seen it before.
Then Vale said something that made my entire body go cold.
“Your little offshore trust wasn't created to protect you, Alex.”
May you like
He placed the document against my chest.
“It was created to make you the perfect scapegoat when the entire Rossi empire collapses.”
