Chapter 8 - The Traitor Inside Baron House
Adeline tried calling again.
Nothing.
Elias called his security team.
No answer from the two men assigned to Evan.
Bruno checked the cameras remotely.
Looped footage.
The kidnapping had been planned before they left.
“We go back,” Adeline said.
“No,” Isabella replied. “Haverin expects that.”
Adeline rounded on her.
“My brother is sixteen.”
“And if you run blindly toward him, he becomes sixteen and orphaned.”
The words were brutal.
Effective.
Elias asked Isabella about Daniel’s original ledger.
She knew.
Daniel had copied transactions proving Rourke and Haverin’s partnership.
But Daniel never told her where he hid them.
Adeline remembered the brass B-19 key.
Evan had found something scratched along its edge.
She had dismissed it as damage.
Three characters.
4C7.
Apartment 4C.
Seven.
They returned secretly to Chelsea.
Adeline searched everything.
Seven floorboards?
Seven books?
Seven photographs?
Then she looked at the old table.
Seven screws held its underside together.
Elias removed the seventh.
Inside the hollow leg was a flash drive.
Daniel’s ledger.
Payments.
Names.
Murders disguised as accidents.
Police bribes.
Judges.
Dock officials.
And one entry from three years earlier.
PAYMENT AUTHORIZED: ELIAS BARON VEHICLE EVENT.
Recipient:
B. MARCHETTI.
Adeline stared at Bruno.
Elias slowly turned.
Bruno looked at the screen.
“No.”
“Your name,” Elias said.
“I never received that money.”
“The account did.”
Bruno examined it.
Then swore.
The account belonged to his brother, Luca.
Luca Marchetti had disappeared after Elias’s crash.
Presumed dead.
Rourke had used Bruno’s family connection to frame him.
But one transfer occurred last month.
The account was still active.
Luca was alive.
They traced it to a motel.
Luca was there.
Older.
Terrified.
He confessed.
Rourke had forced him to install a tracking device on Elias’s car.
Not the bomb.
Daniel saw him and assumed he was the saboteur.
The explosive was installed later.
“By who?” Elias asked.
Luca looked toward Isabella.
“Cormac Haverin.”
The alliance had broken down.
Rourke ordered surveillance.
Haverin decided to kill Elias anyway.
Both men had lied.
Both were responsible.
Luca also knew where Evan was.
Warehouse 12.
At the docks.
Elias assembled men he still trusted.
But Adeline refused to remain behind.
“He’s my brother.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“He’s my brother.”
Elias knew there was no argument after that.
At Warehouse 12, they found Evan’s hospital bracelet on the floor.
Blood stained one edge.
Adeline’s knees nearly failed.
Then a phone rang inside the warehouse.
Elias answered.
Haverin said, “Bring me Daniel’s ledger.”
“Let the boy go.”
“You have thirty minutes.”
A video arrived.
Evan sat tied to a chair.
Behind him stood Rourke.
Elias stared at the screen.
The two enemies were together.
Then Rourke leaned toward the camera.
May you like
“Bring Isabella too.”
And someone behind Evan lifted a gun.
