Chapter 2 - SOMEONE ELSE KNEW I HAD LEFT
I noticed the black sedan the next morning.
It was still there.
Different driver.
Same plates.
I told myself I was imagining things.
Three years with Nico had trained my nerves badly.
A parked vehicle became surveillance.
A stranger looking twice became danger.
A phone ringing unexpectedly became news I didn’t want.
I showered, tied my hair back, and walked downstairs through the hotel lobby.
The sedan didn’t move.
I turned left.
Still nothing.
I entered a diner two blocks away and took a booth beside the window.
Seven minutes later, the sedan rolled slowly past.
My coffee suddenly tasted like metal.
I paid cash and returned to the hotel through a different street.
Someone had entered my room.
Nothing obvious was missing.
My laptop was still inside the duffel.
My wallet remained beneath the mattress.
The $1,800 in cash I had saved secretly over the years was untouched.
But my clothes had been moved.
Someone had searched the bag.
I stood absolutely still.
Then I noticed the lining.
A small section inside the duffel had been cut open.
My first thought was absurd.
I had owned that bag since college.
There was nothing inside it worth stealing.
Then my fingers touched something hard beneath the torn fabric.
I pulled out a black flash drive.
I had never seen it before.
My heart started pounding.
Someone had hidden it inside my bag.
Someone else had come looking for it.
I shoved it into my jeans pocket and immediately left the room.
Ten minutes later, I was inside a crowded public library several blocks away.
I chose a computer far from the entrance.
The flash drive contained only three files.
One spreadsheet.
One audio recording.
And one text document.
The document had six words:
MARA — IF YOU FIND THIS, RUN.
My hands went cold.
My name is Mara Ellison.
Only a handful of people in Nico’s world called me Mara.
Most called me Miss Ellison.
I opened the spreadsheet.
Hundreds of financial transfers appeared.
Shipping companies.
Construction firms.
Restaurants.
Shell corporations.
Millions of dollars moving through businesses connected to Nico.
But the money wasn’t going to him.
It was being siphoned away.
One name appeared repeatedly beside authorization codes.
VINCENT DELUCA.
Nico’s cousin.
One of the few men with unrestricted access to the penthouse.
I nearly closed the file.
Then I saw the final column.
Dates.
The most recent transfer had happened yesterday.
At 11:58 p.m.
Less than an hour before I left Nico.
I opened the audio file.
At first there was only static.
Then a man spoke.
I recognized Vincent’s voice immediately.
“She’ll leave eventually. Women like her always do.”
Another man asked:
“And when she does?”
Vincent laughed.
“We use her to finish Nico.”
I ripped the flash drive from the computer.
May you like
And when I looked toward the library windows...
The black sedan had just pulled up outside.
