Chapter 5 - The Second Ledger
Mateo's mother had been dead for eleven years.
At least, that was what Harper believed.
Mateo stared at the photograph until Gabriel took it from him.
“This was taken after Dad died.”
“How do you know?”
Gabriel pointed to a building in the background.
“It wasn't built until 2011.”
Mateo's mother supposedly died in 2015.
The photograph itself proved little.
Tomorrow's date proved something else.
Someone wanted them to find it.
“This is a trap,” Liam said.
Mateo agreed.
Harper did too.
They went anyway.
The date corresponded with a charity auction at the Bellweather Hotel.
Mateo owned the hotel.
Which meant the enemy had chosen his ground deliberately.
Harper spent the afternoon studying the recovered documents.
One number appeared repeatedly.
Account 17.
Floor 17.
Box 17.
“There's a seventeenth floor at the Bellweather,” Liam said.
“Closed for renovation.”
Mateo ordered it searched.
Nothing.
That evening Harper dressed in the only formal maternity dress available on short notice: deep red, soft fabric, long sleeves.
Mateo saw her outside the elevator.
For several seconds, he forgot whatever he had intended to say.
“What?”
Harper asked.
“Nothing.”
“You're staring.”
“I haven't seen you in eight months.”
“That doesn't explain staring.”
“It explains some of it.”
Her cheeks warmed.
She hated that he could still do that.
The ballroom was crowded.
Harper remained close to Mateo while Liam's team watched every entrance.
At 9:17 p.m., every light went out.
Three seconds.
Then emergency lighting appeared.
A woman stood across the ballroom.
Mateo froze.
“Mother.”
She turned.
Harper's heart jumped.
But when Mateo reached her, the woman was a stranger wearing a wig.
Pinned to her dress was a room key.
They rushed upstairs.
Room 1717 was supposedly empty.
Mateo opened it.
A laptop sat on the bed.
Beside it was another ledger.
Harper approached.
“Don't touch anything.”
She opened the ledger using gloves.
Page after page listed payments.
Not from Mateo's companies.
To them.
Someone had been funding his expansion for years without his knowledge.
Harper understood first.
“They weren't stealing your empire.”
Mateo looked at her.
“They were building it.”
“For what?”
“So they could own the debt beneath it.”
A video began playing on the laptop.
Simon appeared again.
“If Mateo sees this, tell him his father didn't create the organization he inherited.”
Mateo went still.
“He inherited a cage.”
The screen flickered.
A live camera feed replaced Simon.
Harper recognized the penthouse nursery Mateo's staff had begun preparing only hours earlier.
Someone was standing inside.
A woman.
She slowly turned toward the camera.
Mateo stopped breathing.
The woman was older now.
But there was no mistake.
His mother looked directly into the lens.
Then she smiled.
The feed cut out.
Mateo grabbed his phone.
Liam was already shouting orders.
Harper stared at the blank screen.
Something was wrong.
Not with the woman.
With the room.
“What?” Mateo demanded.
“The window.”
“What about it?”
“There isn't one.”
Mateo stared.
Harper had seen the nursery that morning.
It had two windows.
The room in the video had none.
“That wasn't your penthouse.”
Gabriel looked at the room number.
Then at Mateo.
“There's another Falcone property with a seventeenth floor.”
Mateo's face changed.
Harper knew immediately.
“Where?”
He reached for the door.
“The hospital where I was born.”
They entered the hallway.
The elevator doors were already open.
Inside stood the female assistant from Mateo's office.
Blood covered her white blouse.
She held out a key.
“They know about the baby.”
Harper went cold.
May you like
The assistant collapsed.
And behind her, someone stepped out of the elevator.
