Chapter 3 - The Ghost’s Ledger
Roman broke the red wax seal with his thumb. The brittle wax crumbled onto the dark wood of his mother’s desk.
Inside the envelope was a single piece of thick cream stationery, accompanied by a folded newspaper clipping from August 1998.
Roman unfolded the letter first. His mother’s handwriting was firm, unchanged by the illness that had eventually taken her life.
Dearest Roman,
If you are reading this, it means I am no longer here to protect you, and you have finally opened the compartment I begged you to leave alone until you were ready. If you have brought Graham Pierce into this room with you, do not let him leave.
Roman stopped reading. He looked up slowly.
Graham was standing by the mahogany door, flanked by Eli and another guard. His hands were tucked deep into his trousers, his shoulders tight.
"What does it say, Roman?" Graham asked, forcing a light, incredulous tone. "Old family memories? A mother’s final blessing?"
"Read it yourself," Roman said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He tossed the unfolded letter onto the velvet armchair in the center of the room. "Eli, make sure he reads every word."
Eli stepped forward, picked up the paper, and held it in front of Graham’s face.
Graham’s eyes scanned the page quickly. As he read, the remaining color drained completely from his cheeks.
The fire at the Annapolis warehouse in 1998 was not an accident, the letter continued. It was set to conceal the theft of two million dollars from the harbor development account. Your father knew who set the fire. He wrote down the names, the bank codes, and the transfer receipts in the black ledger beside this letter. Two days after he assembled this evidence, your father suffered his fatal 'heart attack' in his office.
Graham Pierce was the last person to see your father alive that night. He brought him his evening tea.
Roman walked over to the desk, picked up the black leather notebook, and opened it to the first page.
It was filled with columns of figures, dates, and signatures. On page twelve, dated July 14, 1998, was a photocopy of a offshore wire transfer to a bank in the Cayman Islands.
The beneficiary of the account was a shell company named Apex Maritime.
The sole director of Apex Maritime was Graham Pierce.
"This is ancient history, Roman!" Graham blurted out, his voice cracking with sudden desperation. "This was twenty-eight years ago! We were kids! We were trying to build something out of nothing!"
"My father died when I was nineteen, Graham," Roman said, stepping toward him, his boots clicking heavily against the hardwood floor. "I stood at his grave while you put your arm around my shoulders and told me you’d help me run his business. I called you my uncle. I gave you thirty percent of everything this company made for twenty-five years!"
"I earned that thirty percent!" Graham shouted, his demeanor snapping completely. "Your father was weak, Roman! He was timid! He wanted to keep Vale Logistics as a small-time trucking firm moving crates of canned goods! I saw the potential! I built the waterfront empire you sit on today!"
"By poisoning my father?" Roman whispered, his grey eyes narrowing into cold slits of pure steel.
"I didn't poison anyone!" Graham sneered, stepping closer despite Eli’s hand on his shoulder. "Your father had a weak heart! I gave him a choice—sign the transfer papers or retire! He got worked up, he started gasping for air, and he reached for his pills! I just... took the bottle off his desk and stepped out of the room!"
Silence settled over the room like a heavy stone.
Eli looked at Graham with disgust, his grip on his weapon tightening.
Roman didn't scream. He didn't raise his fist. The violence in him was too deep, too old for shouting.
He looked down at the black ledger in his hands, then at the newspaper clipping from 1998. The headline read: LOCAL MERCHANT SUFFERS FATAL ATTACK IN HARBOR OFFICE.
"You didn't just come up here to steal the key today, did you, Graham?" Roman asked quietly. "You knew I was opening the desk tonight. You wanted to get this ledger before I saw it."
"I knew your mother kept records!" Graham hissed. "She was always watching me! After she died, I spent six years looking for a way into this wing, but you locked it down like a bank vault!"
"And today, when I brought the key out of my safe, you saw your chance," Roman said. "You slipped away from the dining room, snatched the key off my study tray, and came up here. But you dropped it under the table when you hurried back down."
Graham glared at Roman, a bitter, vicious smile spreading across his face. "And what are you going to do now, Roman? Call the police? Tell them about a thirty-year-old murder based on a handwritten diary from a dead woman? The statute of limitations on corporate fraud expired a decade ago! You have no hard legal proof that will hold up in a court of law!"
Roman leaned in close to Graham’s face.
"You forget who I am, Graham," Roman whispered softly. "I don't use courts."
Before Graham could react, Roman turned to Eli. "Put him in the cellar beneath the old warehouse on Pier 4. The same warehouse he burned down in 1998. We’re going to have a long conversation about what else he stole from my family."
"Roman, wait!" Graham yelled as Eli grabbed him by his collar and began dragging him toward the door. "You need my signature on the Norfolk contract! Without me, the harbor board cancels the deal! You lose forty million dollars!"
May you like
Roman picked up the bow key from the desk, slid it back into his vest pocket, and looked at Graham one last time.
"My father’s life was worth a lot more than forty million dollars, Graham," Roman said. "Take him away."
