Chapter 1 - The Name Behind Forty Million
Beatrice Abbott slammed the laptop shut and whispered, “Someone’s outside.”
Bastion Mercer entered with an encrypted drive in his hand.
A number had been scratched into its metal casing.
This was no longer an audit.
Three nights earlier, Beatrice had believed forty million dollars was the problem.
Now she understood that forty million dollars was only the invitation.
The real problem was whoever had sent it.
She stood beside the desk in the secured library on the top floor of the Mercer Grand, one hand resting against the closed laptop. Beyond the windows, Manhattan glittered beneath her like a city that had never heard the word fear.
Beatrice had.
She simply disliked admitting when she felt it.
Bastion remained near the door.
At forty-two, he had the kind of controlled presence that made other people instinctively lower their voices. Platinum-blond hair swept back from a severe face. White dress shirt. Charcoal vest. Black tie. No jacket.
His expression gave her nothing.
That was worse than anger.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“The service elevator.”
“And?”
“There was blood beside it.”
Her eyes dropped to the drive.
“Whose?”
“We’re finding out.”
Beatrice folded her arms.
“Meaning you don’t know.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Meaning I’m finding out.”
She had learned something about Bastion Mercer during the last seventy-two hours.
He hated uncertainty.
Forensic accounting was built on it.
That might have been why they irritated each other so efficiently.
Beatrice walked toward him and extended her hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Then why bring it here?”
“To ask whether the number means anything.”
“It does.”
Bastion waited.
She pointed toward her laptop.
“I found twenty-three shell companies.”
Something shifted in his face.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Beatrice saw it anyway.
She had built an entire career by noticing what other people preferred to overlook.
“Exactly twenty-three?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
Bastion looked down at the drive again.
“Coincidence?”
“I stopped believing in those somewhere around company number seventeen.”
He crossed the room and placed the drive on the desk.
Beatrice didn't touch it immediately.
Three days ago, Mercer Logistics had been another forensic audit.
An unusually dangerous client, perhaps, but numbers were numbers.
Her firm had been hired after an internal discrepancy appeared between overseas freight revenue and corporate reserve accounts. Beatrice had expected tax avoidance, procurement fraud, maybe an executive skimming bonuses.
Instead, she found money moving through companies that technically existed but conducted no legitimate business.
Twenty-three of them.
Forty million dollars in total.
The money had been broken into smaller amounts, transferred internationally, moved through dormant trusts and shipping subsidiaries, then recombined.
That wasn't embezzlement.
It was architecture.
Someone had constructed a financial weapon.
When Beatrice had reported her first findings, a senior partner named Howard Kline told her to close the review.
She refused.
The following evening, two armed men followed her from the office.
One demanded the encrypted drive containing her work.
Beatrice had escaped because a delivery truck turned into the alley at precisely the right moment.
Bastion's men had found her fifteen minutes later.
She had been furious when he moved her into his hotel.
She remained furious.
She was simply alive enough to continue being furious.
“Open it,” Bastion said.
Beatrice glanced at him.
“You just said no.”
“I changed my mind.”
“How refreshing.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
She connected the drive to an isolated laptop.
“No network?”
“No network.”
“Cameras?”
“Internal system only.”
“Who controls it?”
“My security chief.”
“Name.”
“Adrian Cole.”
She looked up.
“One of the seven?”
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
Earlier, when Beatrice asked who could access the altered shipping manifests, Bastion had initially refused to provide names.
After someone tried to kill her, he reconsidered.
There were seven.
Adrian Cole, head of security.
Marcus Vale, Bastion's chief operating officer.
Evelyn Shaw, corporate counsel.
Daniel Cross, finance director.
Victor Mercer, Bastion's cousin.
Samuel Price, logistics controller.
And Bastion himself.
Seven credentials capable of reaching the records used to disguise the transfers.
One of them had authorized the theft.
Or someone had stolen their credentials.
The drive opened.
One folder appeared.
Beatrice frowned.
“That's it?”
Bastion leaned beside her.
The folder was labeled:
B.A.
Her stomach tightened.
“My initials.”
“I noticed.”
She opened it.
One photograph appeared.
Nothing else.
Beatrice clicked.
The photograph filled the screen.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
It showed Beatrice leaving her apartment.
Not yesterday.
Not this week.
The timestamp was eleven months old.
Her face went cold.
Another click.
Second photograph.
Beatrice entering her accounting firm.
Fourteen months old.
Third.
Beatrice having coffee with her younger sister.
Sixteen months old.
She stopped.
“They were watching me before Mercer Logistics hired my firm.”
Bastion said nothing.
She turned toward him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Don't lie to me.”
“I don't.”
“Everyone lies.”
“Not when the truth is more useful.”
She hated that answer because she believed it.
Beatrice opened another photograph.
Her anger disappeared.
The image showed her standing beside Howard Kline outside the accounting firm's annual dinner.
Someone had drawn a red circle around Howard.
Underneath were four words.
HE KNOWS WHERE IT WENT.
Beatrice stared.
Howard had ordered her to stop investigating.
Howard had insisted Mercer Logistics was too dangerous.
Howard had personally requested that she hand over every copy of her work.
“What?” Bastion asked.
“My boss.”
“What about him?”
“He told me to stop the audit the morning after I discovered the first offshore transfer.”
“That makes him interesting.”
“That makes him scared.”
“Sometimes they're the same thing.”
She looked at him.
“You think Howard stole forty million dollars from you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Howard Kline wouldn't survive stealing forty dollars from me.”
Beatrice's eyebrows rose.
“That sounded suspiciously like a threat.”
“It was an assessment.”
She returned to the screen.
There was one final file.
Audio.
She clicked it.
Static filled the room.
Then a man's distorted voice.
“If Abbott reaches beneficiary identification, activate contingency.”
Beatrice stopped breathing.
Another voice answered.
“And Mercer?”
A pause.
“He dies second.”
The recording ended.
Neither moved.
Beatrice slowly leaned back.
“I feel strangely offended.”
Bastion looked at her.
“They want to kill you first and that's what you have to say?”
“I've had difficult performance reviews.”
“This isn't funny.”
“No. It's terrifying. Humor is cheaper than therapy.”
For the first time, Bastion smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
Then he reached over and removed the drive.
“Pack.”
“No.”
“You're leaving.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Beatrice.”
“I've spent fourteen months being watched, two men chased me with guns, my boss may know something, and somebody just announced a murder schedule with my name at the top.”
“That's precisely why you're leaving.”
“That's precisely why I'm staying.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don't understand what you're standing inside.”
“Then explain it.”
Silence.
Beatrice stepped closer.
“What is forty million dollars to you?”
His eyes settled on hers.
“Not enough to betray me for.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“No.”
She waited.
Finally, Bastion said, “It's enough to start a war.”
There.
The sentence she had been waiting for.
Not theft.
Preparation.
She returned to the laptop.
“Then somebody's financing one.”
Bastion stared through the windows.
“With my money.”
“Using your infrastructure.”
“And my people.”
Beatrice studied him.
For the first time since meeting him, the intimidating Bastion Mercer looked less dangerous than betrayed.
She understood betrayal.
Maybe that was the first mistake.
Her phone vibrated.
Both looked down.
Unknown number.
A message.
DON'T TRUST THE MAN IN THE ROOM.
Beatrice's pulse jumped.
Bastion saw her expression.
“What?”
She locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
His gaze hardened.
“Beatrice.”
Another message arrived.
She opened it before he could stop her.
A photograph loaded.
It showed the two of them inside the library.
Right now.
Taken through the doorway less than a minute earlier.
Beatrice slowly raised her eyes.
The library door stood closed.
Bastion crossed the room and opened it.
The hallway was empty.
Then Beatrice noticed something beneath the doorframe.
A black envelope.
It hadn't been there before.
Bastion picked it up.
Inside was a hotel key card.
Beatrice turned it over.
One room number had been written across the back.
Bastion's face changed.
“What is it?”
He didn't answer.
“Bastion.”
“That room doesn't exist.”
Her phone vibrated again.
A third message appeared.
GO TO 1708 IF YOU WANT THE BENEFICIARY'S NAME.
Beatrice looked toward the elevator.
Its indicator suddenly illuminated.
Someone was coming up.
The numbers climbed.
Thirty-eight.
Thirty-nine.
Forty.
May you like
Then the private elevator stopped on their floor.
The doors began to open.
