Chapter 4 - The Name Inside the Ledger
"Stay down!"
Marco's body covered Elena's as glass shattered above the entrance.
His men returned fire toward the orchard.
Rafael shouted from inside.
Mateo disappeared behind the door.
Sofia screamed Elena's name.
Then everything went dark.
Marco dragged Elena behind a stone planter.
"Nico!"
"Two shooters west side!"
"Not ours?"
"No!"
Rafael yelled from the doorway.
"DeLuca! Tell your men to stop!"
"They aren't mine!"
That silenced Rafael.
For one strange second, enemies understood they had another enemy.
Marco grabbed Elena's face gently.
"Are you hit?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
She reached for the ledger page.
Marco stopped her.
"Leave it."
"My name is on it."
"Bullets are also on it."
Another shot struck stone.
Elena ducked.
Marco removed his overshirt and pulled it around her white uniform.
"Stay here."
"Where are you going?"
"Inside."
"My family is inside."
"Exactly."
"I'm coming."
"No."
She caught his wrist.
"You don't get to claim me in public and abandon me in private."
His eyes met hers.
Despite everything, something almost incredulous crossed his face.
"That's your argument?"
"It's the one I have."
A bullet struck the gate.
Marco swore.
"Behind me. Always."
They ran.
Nico covered them.
Rafael's men pulled the front doors open just enough.
Marco shoved Elena through first.
Then himself.
The door slammed.
Inside, Mateo was on the floor beside Sofia's wheelchair.
Both alive.
Elena ran to them.
"Mateo!"
He grabbed her.
"I'm okay."
She touched his face, shoulders, chest.
"Did they hurt you?"
"No."
Sofia clutched Elena's arm.
"My baby."
Her voice was clearer than it had been in years.
Elena dropped beside her.
"Mom."
Sofia touched the bruise around her wrist.
Her eyes darkened.
"Who?"
Elena laughed through tears.
"Still you."
Sofia's mouth trembled.
Rafael shouted toward the windows.
"Who the hell is shooting at my property?"
Marco looked at him.
"Your property?"
Rafael realized what he had admitted.
Marco nodded slowly.
"Interesting."
"Not now."
"Agreed."
Nico's voice came through Marco's earpiece.
"Shooters retreating. One vehicle."
"Plate?"
"Covered."
"Follow, don't engage."
Marco turned.
"The third party is leaving."
Rafael lowered his weapon slightly.
"You expect me to believe you?"
"No. But if I wanted you dead, I wouldn't shoot from trees."
Rafael stared.
"Fair."
Elena looked between them.
"Can we stop discussing professional etiquette and deal with my family?"
Both men went quiet.
Mateo handed her the ledger.
"I stole it from Vincent."
"You?"
"He came to my school."
"Why?"
"He said he needed help protecting you."
"Vincent?"
Mateo nodded.
"He told me Rafael was using you."
Elena looked toward Rafael.
He did not deny it.
"Vincent gave me the ledger and told me to run."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because Rafael's people caught me."
Rafael said, "I saved him from Vincent."
Mateo snapped, "You put a gun on me."
"After you tried to hit me with a tire iron."
"You kidnapped Mom."
"I moved her."
Elena stood.
"Against her will."
Rafael's face hardened.
"Your mother came willingly when she saw Mateo."
Sofia spoke.
"I came because he lied."
Everyone looked at her.
Rafael stiffened.
"You said Mateo was dying."
"Technically—"
"Don't."
Rafael stopped.
Sofia extended her hand toward the ledger.
Mateo gave it to her.
She turned pages slowly.
"This isn't the original."
Marco stepped closer.
"What?"
"It's a copy."
Rafael looked furious.
"How do you know?"
Sofia smiled without warmth.
"Because I wrote the original."
Elena stared.
"You?"
Her mother nodded.
"Antonio didn't discover the records. I did."
"What were they?"
"Payments. Judges. Police. Businesses. Politicians."
Marco said, "Gabriel's network."
"Not just Gabriel's."
She looked at him.
"Your father had his own names."
Marco absorbed that.
Sofia continued.
"Antonio wanted out."
"Out of what?"
"The war they were building."
Rafael scoffed.
"My father was murdered by Antonio."
Sofia looked at him sadly.
"Your father was murdered, Rafael. But not by Antonio."
Rafael froze.
"Don't lie to me."
"I was there."
Silence swallowed the room.
Elena looked at her mother.
"You saw Gabriel die?"
"Yes."
"Who killed him?"
Sofia's gaze shifted toward the dark windows.
"The same person who arranged Antonio's death."
Marco stepped closer.
"Who?"
Sofia closed the ledger.
"I don't know the name."
Rafael laughed bitterly.
"Convenient."
"But I know what they called him."
Everyone waited.
"The Architect."
Marco's expression changed.
Nico, still listening through the earpiece, cursed.
Elena looked at Marco.
"You've heard that name."
"Rumors."
"What kind?"
"A fixer. Someone who ended wars by owning both sides."
Rafael's eyes narrowed.
"My father talked about an Architect."
Sofia nodded.
"He still exists."
Marco looked toward the shattered window.
"The shooters."
"Maybe."
Elena remembered the page on the grass.
"My name."
She grabbed the copy.
"Why was my name in it before I was born?"
Sofia stared at her.
Then at Marco.
"Oh, Elena."
"Tell me."
Sofia's eyes filled.
"The page didn't say Elena."
"It did."
"It said E. Reyes."
"Who else?"
Sofia's hand trembled.
"My sister."
Elena blinked.
"You had a sister?"
"Eva."
"I've never heard of her."
"That was the point."
"Where is she?"
Sofia looked away.
"Dead."
Marco asked, "Architect?"
Sofia nodded.
"Eva worked with me at Belladonna. She learned too much."
Elena's anger rose.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?"
"Because silence kept you alive."
"Did it?"
Elena held up her bruised wrist.
"Did it really?"
Sofia flinched.
Elena regretted it but did not withdraw the question.
Her mother looked toward Rafael.
"He found you because Vincent restarted the old routes."
Elena turned.
"Vincent made me carry envelopes."
Mateo looked horrified.
"What?"
"I was trying to protect you."
"By doing what criminals told you?"
"They threatened you!"
Rafael raised his hands.
"I didn't choose the threat."
Elena stared.
"Excuse me?"
He looked uncomfortable for the first time.
"Someone ordered me to use you."
"Who?"
"I never met him."
"Architect?"
"Could be."
Marco approached.
"You took orders from a man you never met?"
Rafael glared.
"When the order comes with photographs of your wife and daughter, you listen."
Elena stopped.
"You have a family?"
Rafael's face tightened.
"They disappeared six weeks ago."
The room changed.
Even Mateo's anger softened slightly.
Rafael looked at Marco.
"You think I enjoy grabbing waitresses? I was told Elena had access to the ledger. I was told if I didn't deliver her, my family died."
Elena looked at her wrist.
Rafael followed her gaze.
His shame was immediate.
"That doesn't excuse what I did."
"No."
"I know."
Marco's voice was cold.
"You'll answer for it."
Rafael nodded.
"If my daughter lives, I'll answer for anything."
Sofia whispered, "That's how he works."
"Who?" Elena asked.
"The Architect."
"He makes everyone hurt someone else."
Sofia nodded.
"So no one knows where the first order came from."
Marco paced once.
"Belladonna is the hub."
Rafael looked at him.
"Vincent knows more."
"Where is Vincent?"
Rafael frowned.
"I thought you had him."
"No."
Mateo spoke.
"Someone attacked him before Rafael's people grabbed me."
Elena remembered Sam.
"He was hit in the office."
Marco called Nico.
"Find Rusk."
A pause.
Then Nico answered through the speaker.
"Boss."
"What?"
"We already did."
"Where?"
"River warehouse."
"Alive?"
A longer pause.
"Barely."
Marco looked at Elena.
"We go."
Sofia grabbed his wrist.
"No."
He looked down.
"If Vincent is alive, he can identify the Architect."
"That's why it's a trap."
"Everything tonight is a trap."
Sofia's eyes hardened.
"Then stop walking where they point."
Marco crouched.
"What do you suggest?"
"Make them come to you."
Rafael laughed.
"How?"
Sofia looked at the ring in Marco's hand.
"The ring opens Antonio's private vault."
Marco stared.
"What vault?"
"Under Belladonna."
Elena almost laughed from disbelief.
"Of course there's a vault under my workplace."
Sofia ignored her.
"The original ledger may still be there."
Marco's eyes sharpened.
"I thought Antonio hid it."
"He did."
"At Belladonna?"
"I never knew."
"Then how do you know now?"
Sofia looked at the engagement ring.
"Because Antonio gave me that ring the night before he died."
Elena stared at the diamond.
"Why would he give you his mother's engagement ring?"
Sofia's eyes moved to Isabella's initials engraved inside.
"They aren't my initials."
Marco frowned.
"S.R."
Sofia shook her head.
"Read them upside down."
Marco turned the ring.
The engraved letters became something else.
R.S.
Rusk Security.
Vincent.
Sofia whispered, "Antonio trusted Vincent's father."
Marco stood.
"Belladonna."
They returned to the city before midnight.
Rafael came with them under guard.
Sofia and Mateo were taken to Marco's estate.
Elena refused to stay.
Belladonna had been evacuated.
Police cars were nowhere in sight.
Marco had apparently ensured that.
They entered through the kitchen.
The office remained wrecked.
Elena showed Marco where the safe had been.
He examined the back wall.
"No vault."
She looked around.
"Under Belladonna, she said."
Marco noticed scratches on the floor.
They moved the desk.
A metal plate lay beneath.
No keyhole.
Only a circular indentation.
The size of the ring.
Marco inserted it.
A mechanism clicked.
The floor panel opened.
Cold air rose from stone steps.
Elena looked down.
"You're going first."
Marco almost smiled.
"Gladly."
They descended.
The vault was older than the restaurant.
Brick walls.
Metal shelves.
Dust.
At the end stood a steel door.
The ring opened that too.
Inside were boxes.
Photographs.
Documents.
Old cassette tapes.
And one red leather ledger.
Elena approached.
Marco stopped her.
"Gloves."
She looked at him.
"Seriously?"
"Evidence matters."
They put on gloves.
Marco opened the ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Twenty-seven years of secrets.
Then Elena saw a photograph tucked between two pages.
Her mother.
Antonio.
Isabella.
Gabriel Velez.
And a fifth person.
A young Vincent Rusk.
They all stood together.
Smiling.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
THE FIVE FOUNDERS.
Elena stared.
"Founders of what?"
Marco flipped pages.
Then stopped.
A section heading had been written in red ink.
ARCHITECT PROTOCOL.
Under it appeared five names.
Four had been crossed out.
Antonio DeLuca.
Gabriel Velez.
Eva Reyes.
Thomas Rusk.
Only one remained.
Isabella DeLuca.
Elena stared at Marco.
"No."
He did not speak.
A slow clap echoed from the staircase.
They turned.
Isabella stood at the top.
Alone.
She looked down at them.
May you like
Then she smiled.
"You finally found it."
