Chapter 5 - The Accountant in the Safe House
Harper couldn’t move.
Thomas Hayes looked older.
Gray-haired.
Thin.
But alive.
“Dad?”
The explosion timer showed thirty seconds.
Dante dragged her toward the exit.
“No!”
“You can hate me outside.”
“My father—”
“Outside!”
Thomas appeared at the stairwell.
Evelyn screamed his name.
Twenty seconds.
Thomas reached them.
They ran.
The explosion threw all four onto the pavement.
Fire consumed the office.
Harper coughed against concrete.
Dante rolled her over.
“Harper.”
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t.
Neither was reality.
Her dead mother was alive.
Her dead father was alive.
Her boss was dead.
And somebody had nearly turned them all into evidence.
Thomas crawled toward Evelyn.
“You shouldn’t have brought her.”
Evelyn slapped him.
Harper stared.
It was such a strangely ordinary married-couple gesture that she almost laughed.
Instead she said, “Nineteen years.”
Both parents looked at her.
“You had nineteen years.”
Thomas lowered his eyes.
Harper’s voice broke.
“You let me bury you.”
“I had to.”
“No. You chose to.”
Dante quietly moved away, giving them space.
Thomas explained.
He had worked in federal financial crimes.
Undercover.
Salvatore Lombardi had secretly approached investigators after discovering someone was using legitimate Lombardi businesses to launder money.
Thomas had been assigned.
Evelyn later joined the investigation.
Then Thomas’s identity leaked.
A car bomb was meant for him.
The government staged his death.
Harper looked at Evelyn.
“And you?”
“Six years ago I discovered the leak was still active.”
“So you staged yours too?”
“To protect you.”
Harper laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“You protected me by leaving me alone.”
Evelyn reached toward her.
Harper stepped back.
“No.”
Thomas looked at Dante.
“Your father wasn’t a saint.”
“I know.”
“But he was trying to make the legitimate side of the family clean.”
Dante said nothing.
“He discovered somebody close to him had built a parallel network. Theft. bribery. laundering. Political payments.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked toward the burning warehouse.
“We never proved it.”
Harper interrupted.
“Gabriel?”
“No.”
“Arthur?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Thomas hesitated.
“That’s why people keep dying.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Name.”
Thomas looked him directly in the eye.
“Your uncle.”
Dante’s face changed.
“Vittorio?”
Thomas nodded.
Dante turned away.
Vittorio Lombardi had helped raise him after Salvatore died.
He sat on Lombardi Holdings’ board.
He had toasted Dante’s birthdays.
He had attended Salvatore’s funeral.
Harper understood the betrayal without explanation.
“Vittorio built Vanguard?”
Thomas nodded.
“Arthur managed the accounting structure. Gabriel handled access. Your mother found the pattern.”
Harper looked at Evelyn.
“Then why is Arthur dead?”
“Because he tried to leave.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Still working for Vittorio.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Marco.
“Federal vehicles are approaching.”
Thomas went pale.
“Not ours.”
“How do you know?”
“Because officially, I’m dead.”
They fled.
Dante moved everyone to a remote safe house outside the city.
Harper sat at the kitchen table until dawn reconstructing the transactions.
Dante joined her.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I wasn’t almost blown up.”
“You were literally standing beside me.”
He poured coffee.
Harper accepted it.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Dante said, “You can leave.”
She looked at him.
“I’ll arrange protection.”
“Why?”
“Because this isn’t your fight.”
Harper almost smiled.
“My parents faked their deaths because of it. My employer was murdered because of it. Someone has photographs of me from six years ago. I’m pretty sure it qualifies as my fight.”
Dante sat opposite her.
“You really don’t know when to walk away.”
“I walked away from plenty of bad dates.”
“That’s comforting.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Their eyes met.
For the first time, there was no power game between them.
Just exhaustion.
And something neither was ready to name.
Harper broke eye contact first.
She opened another file.
Then froze.
“What?”
She enlarged a transaction.
A payment had been made from Vittorio’s network.
Recipient:
HAYES, THOMAS.
Harper stared at the amount.
Two million dollars.
Dante said nothing.
Harper checked the date.
Three weeks after Thomas’s supposed death.
She looked toward the bedroom where her father slept.
“He took money.”
“Maybe there’s an explanation.”
Harper gave Dante a humorless smile.
“That’s my line.”
Another payment appeared.
Then another.
Thomas Hayes had received more than eight million dollars from Vittorio’s network over nineteen years.
Harper stood.
She walked toward her father’s room.
Evelyn appeared in the hallway.
“Harper?”
Harper held up the tablet.
“Did you know?”
Evelyn saw the screen.
Her face answered first.
“You knew.”
“Harper—”
“You knew he was taking money.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
Thomas’s bedroom door opened.
He looked at the tablet.
Then at his daughter.
“Your mother is right.”
Harper’s eyes burned.
“Explain.”
Thomas took a breath.
Before he could speak, a bullet tore through the window.
May you like
Thomas dropped.
And the safe-house front door began opening from the inside.
