Chapter 4 - The Ledger of the Living
The morning sun over Long Island Sound was pale and sharp, cutting through the frost on the floor-to-ceiling windows of Damian’s private study.
I sat across the mahogany desk from my husband, wearing a tailored black cashmere turtleneck that hid the worst of the scars along my neck, sipping black coffee. Across from me, Damian was reviewing a stack of financial folios stamped with the Hartwell Shipping logo—documents my brother Julian had signed away three days before the wedding in a desperate bid to save his own skin.
"Your brother is an amateur," Damian said, not looking up from a ledger showing inflated cargo manifests and hidden debt accounts in the Caymans. "He took a solvent empire and ran it into the ground in eighteen months. Half the captains on the Manhattan docks are already looking to jump ship to my syndicates."
"Julian thinks business is still played like a country club poker game," I replied, setting my cup down. "He doesn't realize that the men he owes money to aren't going to send collection letters. They're going to send men with knives."
Damiano looked up, his dark eyes narrowing slightly. "Which brings us to the real problem. Last night, when you told me about your father... you missed a detail."
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"Charles Hartwell didn't build that shipping empire alone," Damian said, leaning back in his leather chair and sliding a yellowed corporate registry across the desk. "In 1998, when the Red Hook docks were consolidated, half the funding came from a silent partner. A man whose name was scrubbed from public registries twenty years ago."
I looked down at the paper. At the bottom of the faded document, beneath Charles Hartwell’s signature, was another name written in heavy, aggressive ink: Victor Vance.
The coffee cup in my hand suddenly felt very heavy.
"Vance," I murmured.
"You know him?" Damian asked, his tone sharpening instantly.
"Vance wasn't a silent partner," I said, a cold shiver running down my spine despite the warmth of the room. "Vance was my father's enforcer. When I was twelve years old, Vance was the one who brought the ledgers to the East Wing. When my father was... indisposed, Vance was the one who carried out his orders."
Damiano stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor. "Vance died in a warehouse fire in Hoboken ten years ago. At least, that's what the police report said."
"Police reports can be rewritten if you pay the right captain," I said, standing to meet him eye-to-eye. "If Vance is still alive, and if he's the one currently buying up Julian's debt behind the scenes... then Julian didn't just sell me to you to get me out of the house. He sold me to Vance's buyers. He's still working for them."
The heavy oak door of the study burst open without a knock.
Marco, Damian’s chief enforcer—a massive man with a broken nose and silence built into his bones—strode into the room, holding a encrypted tablet.
"Boss," Marco said, casting a quick, cautious glance toward me before looking at Damian. "We just got a ping from the Manhattan townhouses. Julian Hartwell's accountant was just found dead in his trunk on 4th Street. And the security feeds show someone broke into the Hartwell family vault an hour ago."
May you like
Damiano didn't hesitate. He looked at me, his face carved from unyielding stone.
"Get your coat," he ordered. "We're going to pay your brother a visit."
