Chapter 7 - HER FATHER'S SECOND LIFE
Samuel Ward had spent Isa’s childhood telling her that honesty was simple.
Do the right thing.
Tell the truth.
Never take what wasn’t yours.
Now she discovered his entire career had contained a secret life.
Rhett took her to a hidden archive beneath one of his legitimate offices downtown.
There, inside boxes older than Isa, they found Samuel’s reports.
He had worked directly with Victor Valin.
Not as a criminal.
As an investigator.
“My father hired people who could identify corruption inside his own organization,” Rhett explained.
Isa looked at him.
“Your father was a mafia boss worried about corruption?”
“He had rules.”
“That doesn’t make him good.”
“No.”
Rhett’s answer came immediately.
“It doesn’t.”
Again, Isa noticed that he never tried to make ugly things beautiful.
Samuel’s files showed millions disappearing through fake contracts.
Mason Voss appeared repeatedly.
So did Gideon Shaw.
But there was another name.
Isa recognized it.
“Daniel Keene.”
Rhett frowned.
“You know him?”
“He was my father’s best friend.”
Daniel had attended every birthday until Samuel died.
Then he disappeared.
Isa had assumed grief drove him away.
Rhett searched the files.
Daniel Keene had been an assistant state prosecutor.
He had helped Samuel prepare indictments.
The case never reached court.
Samuel died in a supposed highway accident.
Daniel resigned three days later.
Mason vanished from official records.
Gideon remained beside the Valins.
Isa felt sick.
“Everyone around my father knew.”
“Not everyone.”
“You did?”
“I knew his name. I was twenty-three. My father kept me out of it.”
She turned.
“And after Samuel died?”
“I was told the investigation ended.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.”
Isa found one final report.
Samuel had circled a series of transfers.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
M.V. ISN’T THE ARCHITECT.
FOLLOW G.S.
Gideon Shaw.
Rhett read it twice.
“Gideon was running the theft.”
“Mason worked for him.”
“Looks that way.”
Isa closed her eyes.
Her husband had married the daughter of the man trying to expose him.
Not because he loved her.
Because he needed to know what Samuel had left behind.
A quiet rage replaced the pain.
“What happened to my father?”
Rhett hesitated.
“There’s another file.”
“Show me.”
He handed it over.
A photograph fell out.
Samuel Ward stood outside a motel.
Beside him was Daniel Keene.
And standing behind them was Mason.
On the back, Samuel had written:
IF I DON'T MAKE IT HOME, DANIEL HAS THE ORIGINAL.
Isa looked up.
“Original ledger.”
Rhett nodded.
“So Mason wasn’t searching for something I had.”
“Not originally.”
“Then why marry me?”
Rhett stared at another document.
Because there, in Mason’s handwriting, was a note dated five years after Samuel died.
THE GIRL DOESN’T KNOW KEENE IS STILL ALIVE.
Isa’s heart stopped.
Daniel Keene had not disappeared.
May you like
He had been hiding.
And according to the address beneath the note, he was living less than thirty miles from Chicago.
