Chapter 6 - The Ledger in the Study
By 3:30 AM, Camila was safely asleep in the nursery of my sister Clara’s home, secured behind a gated driveway with two German shepherds patrolling the yard. Elena sat on Clara’s sofa, clutching a mug of tea, weeping quietly under Clara’s watchful, distrusting eye.
Mateo and I arrived at the Sterling estate twenty minutes later.
The sprawling stone mansion sat dark against the white expanse of the snow-covered lawns, looking less like a family home and more like a fortress of secrets. The wrought-iron gates were closed, but Mateo used his remote transponder to slide them open just wide enough for our car to slip through without triggering the exterior floods.
We parked behind the stone carriage house, shielded from the mansion’s main windows.
“The study is on the ground floor, past the conservatory,” Mateo whispered as we crept through the crunchy, frozen grass toward the side terrace. “Ricardo keeps the server backups in a fireproof safe behind the bookcase. The combination is his grandfather’s birthdate.”
“What about Vanessa?” I asked, pulling my dark woolen coat tighter around me.
“Her suite is on the third floor. She takes sleeping pills after drinking. She’ll be out cold.”
Mateo slid his corporate keycard through the side entrance reader. The small LED light blinked from red to green with a soft, mechanical click. We slipped inside.
The mansion smelled of pine needles, expensive wood polish, and stale wine. In the dining room, the table remained exactly as we had left it—the shattered porcelain pieces still littered the floor, the greasy stain dried into the expensive runner. It was a monument to their malice.
We moved silently down the hallway into Ricardo’s private study. The room was massive, lined with dark mahogany bookshelves, leather wingback chairs, and an enormous desk carved from a single slab of walnut.
Mateo moved directly behind the desk to the antique bookcase. He pulled three leather-bound volumes forward, revealing the recessed digital keypad of the safe. He rapidly punched in the six-digit code.
The heavy steel door popped open with a low hiss.
Inside lay stacks of bearer bonds, several foreign passports, and a slim, silver external hard drive connected directly to the estate’s closed-circuit surveillance network. Next to the drive sat Vanessa’s rose-gold smartphone, plugged into a portable charger.
“Got it,” Mateo whispered, unplugging the phone and pocketing the hard drive. “The security footage from the dining room is on this drive. It shows the whole thing—Vanessa picking up the bowl, aiming it, and throwing it.”
“Check the safe for the financial ledgers Elena mentioned,” I urged, shining my phone’s dim flashlight into the compartment.
Mateo reached into the back and pulled out a black leather binder. As he opened it, a sheet of paper fluttered out.
I picked it up. It was a bank draft from an offshore holding company in the Cayman Islands, dated yesterday. The amount: **$4.2 million**. The recipient: *Vanessa Sterling*.
“She wasn't just helping him,” I whispered, horrified. “He was paying her off. She sold out her own brother and niece for four million dollars.”
“How flattering that you think my price is that low, Sofía.”
A voice cut through the dark like a blade.
May you like
The study’s overhead chandelier suddenly flared to blinding life.
Standing in the double doorway, wrapped in a black silk robe, was Vanessa. In her right hand, pointed directly at Mateo’s chest, was Ricardo’s snub-nosed .38 revolver.
