Chapter 10 - Simon’s Final Insurance
The alarm was not the baby's heart.
Someone had remotely triggered the monitor.
A distraction.
Mateo ripped the device from the wall.
Harper held her son against her chest.
Enough.
She was finished being frightened.
“Go to the bank.”
Mateo stared.
“I'm not leaving you.”
“You have twenty armed men here.”
“I trust maybe six.”
“Then take the six you trust.”
He refused.
Harper won.
At 11:40 p.m., Mateo, Gabriel and Liam entered the abandoned Falcone Bank.
Box 243 contained no money.
Only a recording.
Simon.
Again.
“If Harper returned, she solved enough of this to be dangerous.”
Simon explained that he had created the box as insurance.
The Consortium's true power depended on a master ledger documenting seventy years of bribery, coercion, fraudulent debt and murders.
The second ledger.
Simon had hidden it.
“Where?” Mateo muttered.
The recording answered.
“With the only person Weller will never suspect.”
The screen changed.
Harper appeared.
Mateo stared.
Footage showed Harper eight months earlier leaving the records room.
She carried her handbag.
Simon had secretly slipped something inside.
A tiny memory card.
Mateo immediately called Harper.
“Check the lining of the handbag.”
Harper did.
Her fingers found a seam.
Inside was a microSD card.
She laughed in disbelief.
“I've carried it for eight months.”
Simon had hidden the entire Consortium ledger with the woman everyone was hunting.
Brilliant.
Terrible.
Effective.
Harper inserted it into an offline computer.
Encrypted.
She tried Simon's usual keys.
Nothing.
Then she understood.
Still nothing.
Mateo's birthday.
No.
Her birthday.
No.
Then the baby's birth time.
15:42.
The file opened.
Harper stared.
Every name.
Every payment.
Every crime.
Richard Weller.
Judges.
Bankers.
Police commanders.
Executives.
And one Falcone.
Elena.
Harper stopped.
Mateo's mother appeared dozens of times.
Payments spanning eleven years.
Millions.
When Mateo returned, Harper showed him.
He said nothing.
Elena was summoned.
She looked at the screen.
Then closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Mateo's voice was quiet.
“You worked for him.”
“I worked with him.”
Gabriel swore.
Elena continued.
“To keep you alive.”
Mateo laughed bitterly.
“Everybody keeps betraying me to keep me alive.”
Weller had threatened both sons.
Elena had fed him controlled information.
In return, Weller stayed away from Mateo.
Until Harper uncovered the financial network.
Then everything changed.
“You should have told me.”
“You were becoming your father,” Elena said.
“That's supposed to insult me?”
“No. It's why I was afraid.”
Antonio had tried to destroy the Consortium.
Mateo was doing the same.
And Antonio had died.
Harper watched mother and son stare at each other across twenty years of grief.
Then the microSD card updated.
One file had a live connection.
Harper frowned.
“That shouldn't be possible.”
She opened it.
A countdown appeared.
00:59:41.
“What happens at zero?”
Nobody knew.
Then text appeared.
LEDGER PUBLICATION PROTOCOL.
Simon had created a dead man's switch.
If not canceled, every file would be released publicly.
Mateo stared.
“Good.”
Harper shook her head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because these files contain innocent people too. Addresses. Children. Witnesses. Anyone exposed could become a target.”
They needed the cancellation key.
Simon had divided it into three pieces.
One with Charles Vale.
One with Elena.
One—
Harper found the final entry.
SIMON GORSKI — PERSONAL.
Simon was dead.
His possessions had been collected by police.
Except one item.
His wedding ring.
Simon wasn't married.
Mateo remembered seeing it on his body.
Harper understood.
“The ring is a storage device.”
Liam called the morgue.
Simon’s personal effects were gone.
Collected that morning.
“By whom?”
The attendant checked.
Then hesitated.
“His daughter.”
Mateo stared at the phone.
Simon had said his daughter was dead.
Harper whispered, “She's alive.”
The security camera outside the penthouse chimed.
A young woman stood at the door.
She raised her hand.
On her finger was Simon's ring.
Then she looked directly into the camera.
“My father told me to give this to Harper Reed.”
May you like
Behind her, the elevator doors opened.
Richard Weller stepped out.
