Chapter 17 - The Ledger of Blood
The subterranean vault beneath the wine cellar was a place designed for suffering. Cold moisture dripped from the ceiling, and the only light came from a single, buzzing halogen bulb hanging above an iron chair.
Tied to the chair was one of the tactical shooters from the ballroom—a man whose face was battered beyond recognition. Marco stood beside him, holding a bloodstained rag, his expression grim.
Elena had followed Vincent down into the darkness. She refused to stay in the nursery like a frightened child. If her life, her daughter, and her father’s past were tangled in this web, she would look the monster in the eye.
Vincent walked into the light, radiating a cold, terrifying aura that made the captured mercenary flinch despite his broken ribs.
"Speak," Vincent commanded, his voice devoid of humanity. "You mentioned my brother. Dante died ten years ago in the harbor bombing."
The captive let out a wet, rattling laugh, spitting blood onto the concrete floor. "Dante... didn't die, Donati. He was pulled out of the water by the Petrov syndicate. He’s been in Moscow for a decade, waiting for the old dons to rot."
Vincent’s hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles popped with the sound of snapping wood. "Dante is alive?"
"He's the one who funded Marcus Vance," the man sneered, his swollen eyes flicking toward Elena. "Dante wanted the girl. Not to kill her... but to get the ledger. The original ledger her father stole has the routing numbers to eighty million dollars in Swiss accounts. And Dante knows the cipher is hidden somewhere only the girl can find."
Elena froze. "A cipher? I don't know anything about a ledger! My father left us with nothing but debt and broken ribs!"
"Check your mother's locket, girl," the captive coughed, laughing bitterly. "The one Marcus carried. The one that was sent to your door."
Vincent turned slowly toward the steel table in the corner where the mahogany box sat—the box containing the cracked silver locket delivered that morning.
Elena stepped toward the table, her hands trembling. She picked up the battered silver locket. It had belonged to her mother, the only heirloom she had ever owned before Marcus ripped it from her neck during a beating four years ago.
She turned it over in her palm. The crack across the silver casing wasn't from a hammer—it was an opening seam.
With shaking thumbs, Elena pressed the sides of the broken casing. The silver back popped open, revealing not a photograph, but a microscopic micro-film strip tucked into the hollow lining of the metal, covered in numerical sequences.
The lost ledger of Chicago. The key to eighty million dollars and the absolute destruction of every family in the Syndicate.
"It was with me the whole time," Elena whispered, horror washing over her. "Marcus was hunting me not just out of cruelty... but because my mother hid this inside my locket before she died."
"Which means," Vincent said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly pitch, "my brother didn't send men to the Drake to kill me."
The captive grinned through his bloody teeth. "No. The ballroom was a distraction, Donati. Dante didn't care about the Drake. He just needed you away from your house for three hours."
Vincent’s face went completely bloodless.
Elena dropped the locket. Her breath caught in her throat as a primal, suffocating terror ripped through her chest.
May you like
"Lily," Elena screamed.
***
