Chapter 7 - THE LEDGER UNDER THE NEWBORN'S BED
My nieces had been sleeping on top of my father’s criminal history.
That felt appropriate.
We removed the mattress.
Nothing.
Then Marco examined the wooden frame.
One carved panel on the underside was thicker than the rest.
Inside was a leather book.
Black.
Cracked.
Stamped with my father’s initials.
V.V.
I opened it.
Names.
Politicians.
Police officers.
Union officials.
Judges.
Business owners.
Payments dating back thirty years.
My father had written everything down.
The kind of record men like him usually burned.
Then I found Marcus Drake.
Pages of entries.
Payments.
Side agreements.
A notation:
M.D. knows about A.R. Keep close until secure.
Anna Russo.
Anna.
My half-sister.
My father had treated his own daughter like a vulnerability on a balance sheet.
My jaw tightened.
Then I found another name.
Vincent Caruso.
Payments from Marcus.
Information sold.
Legal records altered.
And one entry that made my stomach drop:
Elias must never know the warehouse deaths were staged.
I froze.
“What warehouse deaths?”
Marco looked over my shoulder.
His expression changed.
“Eleven years ago.”
The incident that led me to order Marcus Drake killed.
Two of my men supposedly died because Marcus sold our route.
But according to the ledger, those deaths had been staged.
My father had manipulated me into believing Marcus betrayed us.
Why?
Reeves continued reading.
Then found the answer.
Marcus had threatened to expose Anna.
My father needed him discredited.
So he framed him for treason.
I stared at my father’s handwriting.
For fifteen years, I had built an empire believing ruthlessness was inheritance.
Now I was learning much of that inheritance had been engineered through lies.
Anna watched me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She almost smiled.
“At least you’re honest.”
I looked at her.
“My father hurt you before you were old enough to know him.”
“He abandoned us.”
“Yes.”
“And then his enemies used me.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward Sofia.
“What happens after we get Lucia back?”
I understood the question.
Would I expect loyalty?
Would I pull her into my family?
Would I decide I had a right to her because we shared blood?
I closed the ledger.
“You decide.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
I thought about how she had been controlled by Matteo.
How my father had reduced her existence to risk.
How I had controlled people for most of my adult life.
“I’m done making choices for people and calling it protection.”
Marco raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds expensive.”
“Probably.”
Then Reeves pointed toward another page.
“Elias.”
I looked.
A recent entry had been added in different handwriting.
Marcus Drake’s.
Elias will trade anything for family once he learns Anna is blood.
My jaw tightened.
He had designed the entire crisis around what he believed I would do.
Dump Anna on my territory.
Expose her identity.
Take Lucia.
Demand the ledger.
Force me into a predictable response.
Then I understood.
“He doesn’t want the ledger.”
Everyone looked at me.
“He wants me at the exchange.”
Reeves frowned.
“Why?”
I turned another page.
A note from Marcus:
VANCE SUCCESSION ENDS WITH ELIAS.
My blood ran cold.
The twins were bait.
Anna was bait.
The ledger was bait.
May you like
Marcus Drake wanted me dead.
And Vincent Caruso had spent twenty years learning exactly how to deliver me.
