Chapter 3 - The Blank Check
The explosion threw Maya from her bed.
Her apartment windows shattered inward. Flames climbed above the rooftops across the street, turning night into a violent orange dawn.
“Sal.”
She ran barefoot toward the door, but two of Damian’s guards blocked her.
“You can’t go outside.”
“That’s my workplace!”
“Miss Ellison—”
She shoved past them.
The diner’s front windows were gone. Firefighters dragged hoses across the street while smoke poured from the roof. Sal stood beside an ambulance in his undershirt, blood running from a cut above his eye.
Maya threw her arms around him.
“I closed early,” he said. “Your security boys found a package under the counter.”
A firefighter shouted as part of the roof collapsed.
Everything Maya had known for six years disappeared beneath flame and sparks.
A black SUV stopped behind the emergency vehicles.
Damian emerged.
Maya crossed the street and struck him across the face.
Every guard froze.
Damian did not move.
“This happened because of you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“No excuses?”
“None.”
Sal approached. “He saved my life, kid.”
“And who endangered it?”
Damian looked at the burning diner. “I will rebuild everything.”
“You think money repairs fear?”
“No. But it repairs buildings.”
“That place was Sal’s life.”
“Then I’ll return it.”
Maya’s voice broke. “You bring destruction wherever you go.”
Damian accepted the words without defending himself.
“You’re right.”
He turned to Marcus. “Take her somewhere safe.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Damian faced her again. “The bomb was meant to bring you outside. A sniper was positioned on the western roof.”
Maya looked upward. Police officers surrounded an abandoned rifle.
Damian lowered his voice. “Hate me tomorrow. Survive tonight.”
She entered the SUV.
Damian took her to a fortified estate beyond the city. It had stone walls, electronic gates, and enough armed guards to defend a government building.
Maya refused the luxurious bedroom and slept on a sofa near the kitchen.
In the morning, she found Damian standing at the window with his shirt unbuttoned. Fresh blood soaked the bandage over his side.
“You need stitches.”
“I have a doctor.”
“Where is he?”
“Twenty minutes away.”
“You don’t have twenty minutes.”
She ordered him onto the kitchen table and opened the medical kit. Damian watched her clean the wound.
“You should have become a nurse,” he said.
“You should stop getting shot.”
“That career path appears less likely.”
Maya threaded the needle.
“This will hurt.”
“I’ve experienced worse.”
She pushed the needle through his skin.
His hand tightened around the edge of the table.
“Still feeling superior?”
“Immensely.”
As she worked, Damian told her the truth about the ambush. Carlo Valenti had arranged the shooting, but someone inside Damian’s organization had given Carlo his route. The same traitor provided the penthouse plans and helped plant the bomb.
“Who has access?” Maya asked.
“Marcus. My attorney, Victor Hale. My security chief, Owen Cross. And my cousin, Adrian.”
“Which one benefits if you die?”
“All of them.”
“Who benefits if you become reckless first?”
Damian looked at her.
“What?”
“The attacks aren’t designed only to kill you. They’re designed to make you angry. Ricky touches me. Someone shoots through your window. Then they destroy the diner. They’re making you respond publicly.”
“You think the traitor wants a war.”
“I think he wants you blamed for starting one.”
Damian sat up slowly.
For two days, he and Marcus examined financial records while Maya watched from the edges. She noticed details the men ignored: a guard who avoided eye contact, a delivery van appearing twice, a housekeeper replacing untouched coffee.
On the third afternoon, Damian’s cousin Adrian arrived.
He was charming, handsome, and immediately hostile toward Maya.
“So this is the waitress,” he said.
“This is Maya,” Damian replied.
Adrian kissed her hand without permission. “You’ve caused considerable inconvenience.”
“I’ve been told I have a gift.”
During dinner, Adrian described rebuilding the diner as a charitable gesture. Maya noticed he knew the bomb had been placed beneath the counter.
That detail had never appeared in the news.
She found Damian afterward.
“Adrian knows where the bomb was.”
“He may have heard from security.”
“Ask him who told him.”
Damian did.
Adrian claimed Marcus had mentioned it. Marcus denied doing so.
Suspicion spread through the estate.
That night, Maya awoke to footsteps outside her room. She opened the door and saw a figure enter Damian’s study.
She followed.
Victor Hale stood beside Damian’s safe, photographing documents.
He turned and raised a silenced pistol.
Maya threw a brass lamp. The gun fired, the bullet tearing through the wall. She ran as Victor pursued her into the corridor.
Damian appeared at the opposite end.
Victor grabbed Maya, locking one arm around her throat and pressing the gun to her temple.
“Drop it,” Victor ordered.
Damian set his weapon on the floor.
Maya felt Damian’s fear from twenty feet away. He concealed it well, but she recognized the same expression he had worn in the alley—the look of a man who had suddenly discovered something he could not afford to lose.
Victor smiled. “Carlo was right. She made you weak.”
“No,” Damian said. “She made you careless.”
Marcus stepped silently from a side doorway and struck Victor’s wrist. The gun discharged into the ceiling. Maya drove her elbow backward, and Damian reached her before she fell.
Victor was restrained.
In his pocket they found photographs, encrypted messages, and a key to a private safe-deposit box.
It appeared the traitor had been exposed.
But Victor laughed as guards dragged him away.
“You still don’t understand,” he told Damian. “I wasn’t selling your secrets. I was buying time.”
“For whom?” Damian demanded.
Victor looked directly at Maya.
“For the man who knows what happened to her father.”
The corridor became silent.
Maya stepped forward. “My father died during a robbery.”
May you like
Victor smiled through bloodied teeth.
“No, Maya. Your father died because he refused to work for Damian’s father.”
