Chapter 5 - The Deal in the Dark
Seth pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the small office, the overhead desk lamp casting sharp shadows across his angular face. His gray eyes swept over the open drawer, the lock pick set resting innocently on the edge of the mahogany desk, and finally landed on Fiona’s calm, unblinking face.
"You have a very strange definition of staying out of my way," Seth noted, his voice dangerously low. "Breaking into my chief financial adviser's desk at midnight doesn't scream 'quiet housewife.'"
Fiona didn't move away from the desk. She crossed her arms, her chin lifting slightly. "And running a multi-million-dollar criminal syndicate while letting a snake hollow out your organization from the inside doesn't scream 'strategic mastermind,' yet here we are."
Seth’s eyes narrowed instantly. The relaxed posture vanished, replaced by the coiled, coiled tension of a predator. "Careful what you say, Fiona. You're standing here because your father's debt bought you breathing room. Don't test how long that air lasts."
"Your father's debt bought me a front-row seat to your slow-motion assassination," Fiona fired back, her voice ringing with absolute, unflinching authority. She stepped around the desk, holding out the leather ledger toward him. "Look at the shipping manifests, Seth. Go ahead. Open it."
Seth didn't move. He stared at her, weighing whether to draw his weapon or listen.
"Grant Mercer isn't skimming from you," Fiona said quietly, stepping closer until she was standing just a foot away from him. He was tall, intimidating, and radiating power, but she refused to shrink. "Mercer’s numbers are clean. The deficit in your weekly briefings is being fabricated. Every single missing shipment and lost dollar traces directly back to a secondary set of accounts managed by your polished, smiling chief adviser: Angelo Ross."
Silence fell over the office, heavy and profound. The rain lashed against the French doors outside.
Seth stared down at the ledger in her hands, then slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. For the first time since they had stood at the altar in St. Augustine’s, the cold mask slipped completely away, revealing a sharp, calculating intellect that immediately grasped the horrifying implications of her words.
"Angelo has been with the family for eight years," Seth said, his voice dropping an octave. "He handled my uncle's estate."
"Angelo is bleeding you dry, feeding false reports to your capos, and setting Mercer up to take the fall so he can hand your North Side territory over to the outfit in Milwaukee," Fiona stated flatly. "If you execute Mercer tomorrow like you planned, your financial structure collapses by the end of the quarter. And you won't even see the knife until it's buried in your spine."
Seth reached out, his warm fingers brushing against her hand as he took the ledger from her grip. He flipped it open, his trained eyes scanning the columns. Within seconds, the muscles in his jaw tightened into a hard, rigid line.
He looked up at her, a strange, intense light burning in his gray eyes. "How did you find this?"
"Because nobody looks at the fat girl in the corner," Fiona said without a trace of self-pity. "They think I'm harmless. They think I'm stupid. They forget that when you're invisible, you get to see everything everyone else is trying to hide."
Seth stared at her for a long, breathless moment. The contempt that had lingered between them since their wedding day dissolved, replaced by a terrifying, mutual understanding.
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"What do you want, Fiona?" he asked softly.
"I don't want your money, and I don't want your pity," she replied, her green eyes flashing. "I want the man who thinks he can use my husband's blindness to destroy my new home. I want Angelo Ross."
