Chapter 4 - The Ledger of the Dead
The iron gates of the Marquette estate swung open without a sound as Marin’s battered Honda Civic rattled up the long, winding drive. The sprawling stone mansion loomed against the stormy night sky like a medieval fortress, its upper windows dark except for a single golden rectangle cutting through the mist from Cassian’s private study.
They didn't go through the front entrance. Marin knew the service tunnels—the ones her mother had used twenty years ago, and the ones the domestic staff used to haul laundry and refuse away from the main halls.
She led Chloe down a set of damp stone steps behind the greenhouse, sliding open a heavy iron latch that led straight into the basement linen room.
“Stay here behind the folding racks,” Marin whispered, handing Chloe a heavy-duty tactical flashlight. “If anyone comes down these stairs—anyone other than me—you run out through the greenhouse and don't look back. Do you understand?”
“Maya, this is insane,” Chloe whispered, her eyes wide with terror. “We should be at a police station! We should be calling the feds!”
“The police in this city work for Teddy Vance, Chloe,” Marin said grimly. “The only person in this zip code with enough firepower to take Teddy down is sitting in that study upstairs.”
Marin left her sister in the dim, lavender-scented shadows of the laundry room and slipped out into the central corridor. The mansion was dead quiet. The kind of heavy, oppressive silence that preceded a hurricane.
She climbed the grand staircase, her soft-soled boots making no sound against the thick Persian runner. As she approached the double doors of Cassian’s study, she noticed something strange: the heavy oak doors were cracked open an inch.
A sliver of golden light spilled across the polished marble floor.
Marin crept closer, pressing her shoulder against the wall beside the frame, and peered through the gap.
Cassian wasn't sitting at his desk.
He was standing near the towering bookshelf against the far wall, a heavy leather-bound ledger open in his hands. His broad back was turned toward the door, his shoulders rigid, the white bandages beneath his open shirt stained with a fresh crescent of pink where he had clearly overworked the healing stitches.
And standing across from him, leaning casually against the marble fireplace with a silver-plated whiskey tumbler in his hand, was Teddy Vance.
“You’re late, old friend,” Teddy said, his voice dripping with an easy, infuriating composure. “I expected you to find the 2004 shipping logs an hour ago.”
Cassian didn't turn around. He slowly closed the ledger with a dull, heavy thud that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
“My mother didn't jump from the cliff, Teddy,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a dark, hollow register that sounded like grinding stones. “And she didn't die of a heart failure in a charity ward. According to these manifests, her name was listed as a primary cargo handler on a phantom shipping run heading straight out of Baltimore harbor forty-eight hours after she vanished from this house.”
“Your father was a paranoid man, Cassian,” Teddy replied, taking a slow sip of his whiskey. “He ran a lot of things through those ships. Some legal, some... less so. When Elena tried to run off with the duplicate ledgers to protect you from your father’s enemies, accidents happened.”
“My father died of a stroke in 2012, Teddy,” Cassian said, turning slowly to face his adviser. His face was a mask of cold, terrifying fury, his golden-brown eyes burning like coals in the dark. “He didn't know anything about the missing manifests. You were the one managing the port accounts. You were the one who signed her name on the transfer orders.”
Teddy’s smile didn't fade. He set his whiskey glass down on the marble mantelpiece with a deliberate, gentle clink.
“And if I did?” Teddy asked softly, tilting his head. “What are you going to do, Cassian? Shoot me? Put me in the cellar? I built this syndicate from a collection of dockside bookies into a multi-state empire while your father was busy drinking himself to death and you were busy playing soldier in the streets. Without me, the Marquette name is just a target on a billboard.”
“You killed her,” Cassian whispered, taking a slow, heavy step forward. “And then you raised me. You stood at my right hand for fifteen years while wearing the blood of my mother on your hands.”
“I raised a king,” Teddy corrected, his voice hardening just a fraction, the grandfatherly warmth evaporating to reveal the cold, ruthless strategist beneath. “A king who was getting soft. A king who was about to tie his bloodline to the Bowmont family and hand our entire financial infrastructure over to a bunch of New York carpetbaggers via Serafina.”
Teddy reached slowly inside his grey suit jacket.
“That’s why I arranged the wedding present,” Teddy continued smoothly. “A little knife wound to remind you who bleeds for this family. Unfortunately, your new little pet medic decided to play surgeon this morning.”
Marin didn't wait to see what Teddy was pulling from his coat.
She kicked the heavy double doors wide open.
“Cassian, watch out!” she screamed, lunging across the room.
Teddy’s hand whipped out of his jacket, gripping a sleek, nickel-plated Walther PPK with a custom-fitted suppressor.
Pop.
The suppressed shot tore through the air, the bullet clipping the edge of the mahogany desk with a sharp splintering sound.
Cassian didn't flinch. Years of street wars and syndicate bloodbaths had hardwired his reflexes into pure, instantaneous violence. In a single explosive motion, he drew his own firearm from his shoulder holster and fired twice through the center of the room.
Pop. Pop.
Teddy stumbled backward, dropping his pistol as a red bloom spread across the shoulder of his immaculate grey suit. He hit the edge of the marble fireplace, sliding down until he sat slumped against the hearth, his breathing ragged and shallow.
Cassian stood over him, his chest heaving, the barrel of his smoking gun pointed directly between Teddy’s eyes.
“It’s over, Teddy,” Cassian growled, his voice vibrating with a lethal intensity.
Teddy let out a wet, raspy chuckle, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. He looked past Cassian, locking his pale blue eyes on Marin standing by the doorway.
“You think killing me fixes it?” Teddy wheezed, a twisted smile spreading across his pale face. “The ledgers are already uploaded to the federal task force's secure drop box, Cassian. Set to release at sunrise if I don't enter my override code every twelve hours. By tomorrow afternoon, the entire Marquette syndicate—every dock, every bank account, every safehouse—will be seized by the feds.”
May you like
Cassian’s finger tightened on the trigger. “You treacherous bastard.”
“Go ahead,” Teddy whispered, closing his eyes as his head lolled back against the stone. “Pull the trigger. But you’ll die in a federal cage before the week is out.”
