Chapter 5 - THE ORDER WITH LARKIN’S NAME ON IT
The document existed.
Larkin knew because he had found it after his father died.
He had never shown me.
That was the betrayal.
Not necessarily the murder.
Not yet.
Emergency lights came back after Paulie—different recurring name, but okay, let's use Larkin bodyguard "Mason Cross" to avoid similarity. Mason Cross cleared the floor.
Larkin removed a sealed envelope from the safe.
Inside:
Operational authorization.
Target:
JOSEPH WOODS.
Action:
Permanent resolution.
Approver signature:
LARKIN STEVES.
Date:
Nine years earlier.
I stared.
Larkin had been twenty-three.
My father died that same year.
“You signed this.”
“No.”
“It is your signature.”
“I know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone used it.”
“Convenient.”
His face hardened.
“I was in London that week.”
“Proof?”
“Yes.”
“Then why hide this from me?”
Silence.
That was the real question.
Larkin sat.
“For three years, I told myself I was protecting you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“I knew if you saw this, you would investigate.”
“Yes.”
“And whoever forged it might realize you were connected.”
“Also yes.”
“So you kept me working inside the organization?”
His face changed.
He heard it.
The absurdity.
“You hid me beside the people who might’ve killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“That is your definition of protection?”
“No.”
Finally.
“It was control.”
The word sounded painful.
Good.
Then:
“I knew where you were every day.”
“There.”
I stood.
“That’s the truth.”
Larkin looked up.
“I could watch you.”
“You could manage me.”
“Yes.”
“You could see whether I found the evidence.”
“Yes.”
I laughed through tears.
“And you wonder why I made myself invisible.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“You thought the gray clothes were fear.”
“They weren’t?”
“Partly.”
I opened my bag.
Inside was another flash drive.
Not company records.
Personal.
“Three months after I started working for you, someone broke into my apartment.”
Larkin stood.
“You never reported that.”
“To who? You?”
“What was taken?”
“Nothing.”
Then:
“But my father’s old desk had been searched.”
Larkin went still.
That was why I became invisible.
No social media.
No expensive purchases.
No dating coworkers.
No attention.
I suspected the job had put me near something dangerous.
I simply never knew how close.
Then Larkin asked:
“Why didn’t you quit?”
I laughed.
“Ninety thousand dollars in loans.”
He almost smiled.
Not funny.
Still human.
Then:
“And because I wanted to know who searched my father’s desk.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yes.”
I reached into my bag and removed a brass key.
Tiny.
Old.
I had found it taped beneath the desk drawer after the break-in.
No label.
No explanation.
For three years, I kept it.
Thomas’s message appeared again.
THE KEY OPENS BOX 711.
My blood went cold.
Larkin saw.
“Box where?”
Another text:
GRAND UNION SAFE DEPOSIT.
Then:
YOUR FATHER LEFT IT FOR YOU.
How did Thomas know?
Unless he had been searching for the same key.
Larkin said:
“We don’t go tonight.”
I looked at him.
“We?”
He stopped.
“You.”
Good.
“I’m going.”
“Tomorrow. With your attorney.”
“I don’t have—”
“You choose one. Independent.”
He was learning quickly.
Then my phone buzzed one final time.
Thomas:
IF YOU OPEN 711, LARKIN WILL KILL YOU BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE BANK.
May you like
I looked at Larkin.
He did not deny that whatever was inside could destroy him.
