Chapter 12 - The Choice That Saved Chicago
Bee's hand moved toward the pistol concealed beneath her jacket.
Matteo noticed.
"Go ahead," he said. "Shoot me. You'll still never learn what happened to your mother."
Her fingers tightened around the grip.
For twenty years, she had lived with a grief that had no answers. Now the man responsible stood before her, offering explanations as if they were favors.
Michael shook his head desperately.
"Bee, don't let him turn you into him."
Matteo laughed.
"Listen to your father. He abandoned you, lied to you, and allowed your mother to die without telling you the truth. Yet somehow I'm the villain."
Bee forced herself to lower her hand.
"No," she said. "You're the man who needs me angry enough to stop thinking."
His expression changed.
She opened the briefcase.
Inside lay the decoy ledger, but beneath it was a small recording device. Bee had activated it before entering the warehouse.
Matteo glanced at the device and immediately raised his gun.
A shot rang out.
The warehouse lights shattered.
Dominic and his men stormed through the side entrance as Bee dropped behind a concrete pillar. Bullets struck the machinery overhead. Matteo dragged Michael toward a loading platform, using him as a shield.
Dominic fired once, forcing Matteo to release him.
Bee crawled toward her father and cut his restraints with a small knife.
"Can you walk?"
Michael nodded.
Across the warehouse, Matteo reached an emergency exit.
Dominic pursued him, but Bee shouted his name.
"Dominic, wait!"
He turned.
She held up the recording device.
"The ledger is a distraction. The real evidence is already being transmitted."
Matteo froze at the exit.
A distant chorus of sirens grew louder.
Bee had arranged for encrypted copies of the financial records to be delivered simultaneously to federal investigators, independent attorneys, and the legitimate boards of the companies named in the documents.
The Black Circle's secret accounts would be frozen. The bribed officials would be exposed. The shell companies could no longer move money without attracting scrutiny.
Matteo looked at her with pure hatred.
"You have no idea what you've done."
"I know exactly what I've done."
He raised his pistol toward Dominic.
Bee shouted a warning.
Dominic ducked as Matteo fired. A bullet struck the metal door behind him. Before Matteo could shoot again, one of Dominic's men tackled him to the ground.
The warehouse fell silent.
For the first time in years, Matteo Rossi was no longer the man controlling the room.
But as federal agents entered the building, Michael grabbed Bee's hand.
"There's something else you need to know."
She turned toward him.
"Your mother didn't die because of Matteo's order alone."
Michael's voice broke.
"Someone warned him where she would be."
Bee felt her blood turn cold.
"Who?"
May you like
Her father looked toward Dominic.
And Dominic, for the first time since she had known him, looked genuinely afraid.
