Chapter 17 - THE LEDGER OF THE DEAD|
Dominic moved toward the hallway while Adrian secured the rear exit. Lena stayed with Annie and Sophie, refusing to let the child out of her sight.
Solin’s voice came through the darkness.
“I know you can hear me. I know the child is with you. There’s no reason for anyone else to get hurt.”
Lena looked at Annie, who had buried her face against Sophie’s shoulder.
“You’re not taking her,” Lena called.
“You don’t understand what she represents.”
“She’s a child.”
“She is the beneficiary of a trust worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Her father hid the final authorization in a ledger that your family has been chasing for years. Without it, several accounts remain frozen.”
“Then let them remain frozen.”
Solin laughed.
“Easy to say when you don’t understand what happens to the people whose livelihoods depend on those accounts.”
“People like the men you paid to kill my father?”
Silence.
Then Solin answered.
“Your father chose his principles over his family.”
Lena’s anger rose, but she kept her voice controlled.
“No. He chose his family over your money. You couldn’t tolerate that.”
A door slammed at the far end of the corridor.
Dominic appeared beside her.
“Move now.”
They took the service stairs down to the loading area. Two vehicles waited outside, their engines running. Adrian guided Sophie and Annie into the first while Dominic covered the corridor.
Lena was halfway to the second vehicle when she noticed a figure standing beneath the red beacon’s sweep.
Aldwell.
He held a gun at his side.
Dominic froze.
“You were working with Solin.”
Aldwell’s face looked older than it had that evening in the restaurant.
“I was working with whoever could keep the organization from collapsing.”
“You gave him our location.”
“I gave him information. I never ordered anyone killed.”
“You helped him find the people who could expose him.”
Aldwell looked at Lena.
“I didn’t know your family would be targeted. I swear it.”
Lena wanted to believe that he had not known. But ignorance had been the excuse behind every betrayal she had uncovered.
“What did Solin promise you?” she asked.
“Control of the waterfront operations after Dominic was removed.”
“And you believed him?”
Aldwell’s shoulders sank.
“I believed I could keep the business alive.”
Dominic’s voice was cold.
“You kept the worst parts alive.”
Aldwell raised his weapon—not toward Dominic, but toward the darkness behind him.
“Get down!”
A shot struck the metal door.
Solin’s men had entered through the loading bay.
Aldwell fired twice, forcing them back long enough for the others to escape. He fell behind a concrete barrier, clutching his side.
Dominic started toward him.
Aldwell shook his head.
“Go!”
For the first time, his loyalty looked genuine. Perhaps it had always been genuine, twisted by fear and ambition until he could no longer distinguish protection from control.
Dominic retreated.
The vehicles sped toward a secure location outside the city.
During the journey, Lena opened the astronomy book Annie had carried. A folded sheet of paper slipped from the back cover.
It contained a series of numbers and a sentence written in David’s handwriting:
The truth is not in the money. It is in the people who were paid to forget.
Lena understood.
The ledger was not merely a financial record. It contained coded references to witnesses, investigators, and officials who had helped conceal the murders.
The final authorization would expose the entire network.
She called Margaret and explained what they had found.
“Can you decode it?” Dominic asked.
“Yes,” Lena replied. “But we need the second half of the key.”
“Where is it?”
Lena looked at Annie, who was asleep against Sophie.
“Somewhere my father believed nobody would search.”
She turned the book over and examined the spine.
Beneath the binding, almost invisible, was a narrow strip of paper.
The missing key.
But before Lena could unfold it, her phone rang.
Aldwell’s number appeared.
She answered.
His voice was weak.
“Lena, listen carefully. Solin doesn’t have the ledger because he doesn’t need it anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“He found the person who can authorize the trust.”
A pause.
Then Aldwell whispered the name.
“Annie.”
The call ended.
May you like
Lena looked at the sleeping child.
And realized that the final secret had been hidden inside her niece’s identity all along.
