Chapter 7 - THE LEDGER IN THE FLOORBOARDS
The word ledger hung in the sterile air of the west wing like a guillotine blade.
My breath caught in my throat, and for a terrifying second, the fluorescent lights above us seemed to blur into white streaks. I clutched the edge of the metal cart behind me to keep my knees from buckling.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I managed to choke out, though my voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.
Jared didn't raise his voice. He didn't threaten me. He simply watched me with a heavy, sorrowful weight in his gray eyes that was far more unnerving than any display of rage.
“Willa,” he said, his tone softening just enough to make it hurt. “You lived in Chicago for two years under the thumb of Julian Vance—one of the primary financial fixers for the syndicate. You worked as his personal archivist until the night you watched his safe-deposit records go up in a backyard incinerator. You didn't just walk away. You took the backup hard drives.”
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit.
For three years, I had lived every single day looking over my shoulder. I changed my hair, I changed my name, I moved across state lines, and I never used a credit card linked to my real identity. I thought I had vanished into the cracks of Brooklyn.
And yet, Jared Kensington knew every single detail of my escape.
“How do you know that?” I whispered, tears of helpless frustration stinging the corners of my eyes. “Are you working with them? Did you bring me here to hand me back on a silver platter?”
“If I wanted to hand you over, you would have been in a trunk on the interstate an hour ago,” Jared replied flatly. He stepped closer, stopping just outside arm's reach. “The men who rammed my gate tonight weren't local street thugs, Willa. They were Vance’s cleanup crew. They tracked a digital signature from Brooklyn straight to my outer perimeter.”
Atlas let out a low, menacing growl at the mention of uninvited strangers, shifting his massive body protectively in front of my legs.
“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Why would Vance care about me after all this time? I haven’t used those drives. I haven’t gone to the police.”
“Because the drives don't just contain financial records,” Jared said grimly. “They contain the names of every federal judge, senator, and police captain on the syndicate's payroll in the Northeast. And my name is right at the top of page one.”
I stared at him in horror. “You’re part of them.”
“I was part of them,” Jared corrected sharply. “Years ago, before I built my own empire out of the ashes of what they destroyed. Atlas belonged to my brother—the man they murdered when he tried to walk away from the syndicate just like you did.”
The pieces of the puzzle slammed together with sickening clarity.
The silver medallion. The haunted eyes of the Mastiff who had spent months grieving a master who never came home. The hundred thousand dollars that wasn't payment for veterinary services, but a retainer for an alliance.
“That’s why the dog wouldn't eat,” I whispered, looking down at the massive silver-gray head resting against my boots. “He wasn't sick. He was waiting for a ghost.”
“Just like I was,” Jared said quietly.
May you like
Before I could answer, the security intercom on the wall beside the door crackled to life with a burst of static.
“Boss,” Miles’s voice hissed through the speaker, tight with urgency. “They’ve breached the secondary courtyard. They’re coming through the west wing service corridor right now.”
