Chapter 3 - The Ledger That Should Not Exist
Tommy moved first.
He pulled Clara behind the desk while Dominic aimed at the door.
It opened.
Vincent stumbled inside.
His hands were bound.
Blood covered his shirt.
“Vincent.”
Dominic caught him before he fell.
“Close it,” Vincent gasped.
Tommy locked the door.
Clara rushed forward.
“Where are you hit?”
“I’m not.”
She touched the blood.
Vincent looked down.
“Not mine.”
Dominic cut the restraints.
“Whose?”
Vincent met his brother’s eyes.
“Salvatore’s.”
The room went silent.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Very.”
Dominic grabbed his shoulder.
“Where?”
“Parking level B4.”
Tommy headed for the door.
Vincent stopped him.
“He’s gone.”
“How did you escape?”
“He let me.”
That changed everything.
Clara understood first.
“He wanted you here.”
Vincent nodded.
Then he noticed Enzo’s frozen face on the monitor.
“You found the video.”
Dominic’s stare hardened.
“You knew.”
Vincent sank into a chair.
“For six months.”
Dominic hit him.
Clara flinched.
Vincent fell sideways, then slowly straightened.
He didn’t retaliate.
“Fair.”
“You knew Salvatore was alive?”
“No.”
“What did you know?”
Vincent wiped blood from his mouth.
“That Dad didn’t die because of a robbery.”
Dominic froze.
Their father had been shot leaving a restaurant.
Police called it a robbery.
Dominic had never believed it.
“Who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eleven years, Vincent.”
“I was trying to prove it.”
“Without me.”
“Because Dad told me to.”
Vincent reached inside his torn jacket.
Dominic’s gun came up.
Vincent removed a brass key.
“Dad gave me this the night before he died.”
A number was engraved into it.
Clara stared.
“Room 814.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You know it?”
“Lake Meridian paid the Aster for the same room every month for twenty-six years.”
Dominic took the key.
“Then we go upstairs.”
Room 814 had not appeared on the hotel’s public floor plan.
There was an 812.
An 816.
Between them was decorative paneling.
Tommy found the hidden lock.
The brass key fit.
Behind the wall was a narrow room.
Dust covered everything except a desk.
Someone had been there recently.
Clara opened a cabinet.
Financial ledgers.
Dozens.
She pulled one free.
The first page contained her mother’s name.
Evelyn Jenkins.
Clara sat down hard.
“My mother was a public-school bookkeeper.”
Vincent shook his head.
“No. She worked for Dad.”
Clara looked at him.
“You knew?”
“I found her name six months ago.”
“She died when I was nineteen.”
“I know.”
Dominic watched Clara’s composure crack.
He crouched beside her.
“What did she tell you about her work?”
“Nothing.”
Her voice trembled.
“She said numbers were honest even when people weren’t.”
Dominic looked at the ledger.
“She taught you.”
Clara laughed once through sudden tears.
“Apparently she trained me for a job I never knew existed.”
They searched.
Evelyn had recorded decades of payments.
But not criminal profits.
Bribes paid by someone else.
Money flowing through Castellano businesses without Enzo’s authorization.
Enzo had discovered it.
Evelyn had helped him trace it.
Tommy opened another ledger.
“Here.”
A handwritten note:
S.D. controls judges.
E.C. suspects.
T.M. has evidence.
Children must never know.
Dominic read it twice.
“Salvatore DeLuca.”
“Enzo Castellano,” Clara said.
“Thomas Moretti,” Tommy added.
Vincent stared.
“Our fathers were fighting him.”
A floorboard creaked.
Everyone turned.
Clara noticed a loose plank.
Beneath it sat a cassette recorder.
Dominic pressed play.
Enzo’s voice filled the hidden room.
“Evelyn, if anything happens to me, give everything to Clara when she is ready.”
Clara covered her mouth.
Another voice answered.
Her mother.
“She’ll be a child.”
“Then wait.”
“And your sons?”
A long pause.
“Dominic will try to avenge me.”
Vincent looked at his brother.
Enzo continued.
“Vincent will try to protect Dominic. Both choices will destroy them.”
The recording crackled.
Then Evelyn asked one final question.
“What about the third account?”
Silence.
Enzo’s answer was barely audible.
“That one belongs to the person financing Salvatore.”
Clara leaned toward the recorder.
“Who?”
On the tape, Enzo spoke a name.
May you like
But before they could hear it, every light in Room 814 went dark.
A red laser dot appeared on Vincent’s chest.
