Chapter 5 - The Betrayal at Obsidian
Vincent reached for the door.
Khloe blocked him.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“He has Evan.”
“And he wants you angry.”
“He has my evidence.”
“He wants you angry.”
Vincent stared at her.
Khloe refused to move.
“You walk in there furious and Chad controls what happens next.”
Detective Cole agreed.
“He’s baiting you.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“What do you suggest?”
Khloe looked at the files surrounding them.
“We stop behaving like Chad is smarter than everyone.”
She picked up her own contingency plan.
“He repeats patterns.”
Daniel nodded.
“Always.”
Khloe pointed toward one line.
Transfer remaining funds.
“If he’s destroying evidence and preparing to run, the flash drive isn’t his real priority. Money is.”
Rebecca understood.
“Freeze the accounts.”
Cole contacted federal financial investigators.
Within an hour, emergency holds were placed on several accounts connected to Wilkins Hospitality.
Then something unexpected happened.
Chad called Khloe.
Not Vincent.
Her.
She answered on speaker.
“You ruined everything,” he said.
Khloe kept her voice steady.
“You did that yourself.”
“You think Moretti will protect you forever?”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
Khloe ignored it.
“Where’s Evan?”
“Safe for now.”
“Let him go.”
“Bring me the files from the print shop.”
“You already have the flash drive.”
“The drive is useless without the encryption key.”
Khloe looked at Evan’s notes.
There was no mention of a key.
She understood.
Chad was bluffing.
“You don’t need a key.”
Silence.
Got him.
Khloe continued.
“You haven’t been able to open the drive, have you?”
Chad hung up.
Vincent looked at her.
“You enjoyed that.”
“A little.”
It was the first light moment either of them had experienced since the party.
Then Khloe noticed something else.
Derek had stolen the drive from Vincent but had not simply handed Chad its contents.
Why?
“Maybe Derek isn’t working for Chad.”
Vincent frowned.
“He took the drive.”
“Yes. But what if he took it for someone else?”
“Who?”
Khloe looked toward Michael’s file.
Vincent went still.
“No.”
“It would explain how Chad got the drive without the encryption key.”
“Derek has worked for me seven years.”
“And your brother has been alive somewhere for nine.”
Vincent called Derek.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then a text arrived.
DON’T COME TO OBSIDIAN.
Vincent showed Khloe.
A second message followed.
CHAD HAS A GUN.
Khloe’s stomach tightened.
A third.
EVAN IS ALIVE.
Then:
MICHAEL SENT ME.
Vincent sat down.
Khloe watched nine years of questions hit him at once.
“He knew?”
Vincent’s voice was barely audible.
“Derek knew my brother was alive.”
Another message arrived.
TRUST ME FOR TEN MINUTES.
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Seven years beside me, and now he asks for ten minutes.”
Khloe sat across from him.
“Give him five.”
Police surrounded Obsidian quietly.
Derek sent instructions.
Chad believed he had successfully turned him against Vincent.
Derek would keep Chad occupied while officers entered through the service corridor.
Khloe was ordered to remain outside.
This time, she agreed.
Mostly.
From the command vehicle, she watched body-camera feeds.
Officers moved through the kitchen.
Vincent waited beside Detective Cole.
Then Derek appeared on one camera.
He approached Evan.
Chad shouted something from outside frame.
Derek raised his hands.
A door slammed.
Officers moved.
Thirty seconds of confusion followed.
Then Evan appeared running toward them.
Safe.
Khloe exhaled.
But Chad was gone.
A service elevator had taken him to the underground garage.
Police pursued.
They found his car.
Empty.
On the driver’s seat was the flash drive.
Derek was brought outside.
Vincent met him near the entrance.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Vincent punched him.
Once.
Derek accepted it.
“I deserved that.”
“You lied to me for seven years.”
“I protected your brother for seven years.”
“Where is he?”
Derek looked at Khloe.
Then at the police.
“He’s coming.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Derek handed him a key.
“Michael said you’d recognize this.”
It was old brass.
Vincent closed his hand around it.
“Our mother’s house.”
Derek nodded.
The Moretti family home had been empty for years.
Vincent’s mother had died when he was twenty-seven.
His father followed three years later.
Michael disappeared between them.
Vincent had kept the property but rarely visited.
At 2:00 a.m., Vincent drove there with Khloe, Rebecca, Derek, and Detective Cole following.
Khloe asked why she was included.
Vincent answered simply.
“Because Michael specifically requested you.”
That frightened her more than she expected.
The house was dark.
Vincent unlocked the front door.
No one waited inside.
They searched the first floor.
Nothing.
Then Vincent remembered the brass key.
He walked toward his father’s old study.
Behind a bookcase was a small locked cabinet.
The key fit.
Inside sat a single photograph and a letter.
Vincent opened the letter.
His hands began shaking.
Khloe moved closer.
“What does it say?”
He handed it to her.
Vincent,
If Derek brought you here, Chad finally made the mistake I’ve been waiting for.
Do not blame Derek.
I asked him to keep me dead.
I needed Chad to believe there was no one left who knew where the first ledger was hidden.
The ledger is not here.
Khloe knows where it is.
Khloe stared at the sentence.
“I don’t.”
Vincent read the final line.
Ask her what her father left her.
Khloe stopped breathing.
Her father had died four years earlier.
He had left her almost nothing.
A watch.
A box of photographs.
And an old key she had never been able to identify.
Her phone suddenly rang.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
She answered.
No one spoke.
Then a familiar male voice whispered:
“Khloe Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Michael Moretti.”
Vincent went completely still.
Michael continued.
“Don’t tell Vincent where your father’s key is.”
Khloe looked at Vincent.
May you like
Then Michael said something that turned her blood cold.
“Because the man who killed your father is standing in that house with you.”
