Chapter 5 - The Ledger Beneath the Harbor
Mateo reached the balcony first.
The visitor was not an assassin.
It was Adrian.
Lorenzo’s mysterious associate climbed in from the neighboring apartment.
Sienna stared at him.
“You could have used the hallway.”
“Hallway cameras are compromised.”
Mateo grabbed Adrian by the jacket.
“Who are you?”
Adrian calmly removed Mateo’s hand.
“Someone trying to keep her alive.”
He gave Sienna a small metal key.
“Your mother gave me this.”
Sienna went still.
“My mother died eleven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You knew her?”
“Better than your father knew.”
The key opened a deposit box beneath an old harbor warehouse once owned by Sienna’s mother, Evelyn Mercer.
Lorenzo joined them.
He was furious Adrian had operated independently.
Adrian finally explained.
His father had worked federal organized-crime cases.
Evelyn had secretly provided financial records showing that legitimate Boston shipping firms were being infiltrated through debt.
The operation had begun long before Harrison’s gambling.
Before Camille.
Before Mateo’s scandal.
“Who was behind it?” Sienna asked.
Adrian looked at her.
“Charles Vale was the accountant.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
He hesitated.
“The man financing it was Dominic Rinaldi.”
Lorenzo became silent.
Mateo’s expression changed.
Sienna noticed.
“Who is Rinaldi?”
Lorenzo answered.
“My uncle.”
Dominic had helped raise the Costa brothers after their father died.
He had also vanished five years earlier after Lorenzo discovered money missing from family accounts.
Lorenzo had believed Dominic fled Europe.
Adrian shook his head.
“He never left Boston.”
The deposit box contained Evelyn’s ledger.
Page after page documented payments, shell companies and political bribes.
At the end was a handwritten note.
SIENNA — IF YOU EVER READ THIS, OWN YOUR NAME. NEVER LET A MERCER OR A COSTA DECIDE WHAT IT IS WORTH.
Sienna pressed her fingers to the handwriting.
For the first time since this began, her composure cracked.
Mateo quietly stepped away, giving her privacy.
Lorenzo did the same.
That small act mattered.
Sienna wiped her eyes.
“Where is Dominic?”
Adrian pointed toward the ledger.
“We follow the money.”
The trail led to a decommissioned customs facility beneath the harbor.
There they found a hidden archive.
Original manifests.
Bribery records.
Photographs.
And evidence that Charles Vale had been taking orders from Dominic for seventeen years.
Harrison had discovered the scheme accidentally.
Dominic threatened Sienna.
Harrison borrowed money from Lorenzo to cover missing funds and keep the scheme concealed while searching for a way out.
It did not excuse him.
But it explained him.
Then Mateo found another file.
CAMILLE DELUCA.
Inside was a hospital admission under a false name dated the night after her disappearance.
Sienna stared.
“She really survived.”
Mateo looked as though someone had punched him.
The record showed severe hypothermia.
A fractured wrist.
No body had ever been identified through DNA.
Only jewelry.
Camille’s jewelry.
“She was alive,” Mateo whispered.
Lorenzo put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Mateo pulled away.
“Don’t.”
Sienna understood.
Lorenzo had protected Mateo by withholding doubts.
In doing so, he had imprisoned him inside grief.
They searched the remaining records.
One document showed regular payments to a private medical facility in Vermont.
The last payment had been made twelve days earlier.
Recipient initials:
C.D.
Mateo stared at them.
“I’m going.”
Lorenzo nodded this time.
“So am I.”
Sienna closed the folder.
“We all are.”
Her phone rang.
Harrison.
She answered.
“Dad?”
He sounded weak.
“Sienna, listen to me. Vale came to the clinic.”
She stood.
“What?”
“He wanted the ledger.”
“Where is security?”
“Dead.”
Sienna’s blood chilled.
Then Harrison whispered something she almost did not hear.
“Vale isn’t working for Dominic anymore.”
“Who is he working for?”
A door creaked through the phone.
Harrison stopped speaking.
“Dad?”
Footsteps.
Then Charles Vale’s voice came through the line.
“Ask Lorenzo who inherited Dominic Rinaldi’s network.”
The call ended.
Sienna looked at Lorenzo.
He already knew the answer.
May you like
But before he could say the name, Adrian raised his gun.
And pointed it directly at Lorenzo.
