Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Blood
Clara stared at the man standing inches from her weapon. Landon Moretti was feared across five states. He commanded hundreds of men, controlled shipping routes, and managed legal and illegal empires alike. But standing in her dim kitchen, bathed in the yellow glow of a distant streetlight, he looked like a man carrying an unbearable weight.
Slowly, Clara lowered the revolver. She engaged the safety latch with a small click and set the weapon on the kitchen counter.
"I didn't kill him, Landon," she whispered.
"I know," Landon said softly. "If you were the traitor, you would have sold what Santino gave you to the Falcones eighteen months ago and lived like a queen in South America. Instead, you're wearing cheap shoes and working twelve-hour shifts."
Clara took a deep breath, wiping her damp palms against her jeans. She walked to the small hallway closet, knelt, and pried up the loose floorboard. She pulled out the oilcloth bundle and set it on the kitchen table between them.
Landon watched her intently as she unwrapped the heavy dark leather binder.
"What is this?" Landon asked.
"Santino called it his insurance policy," Clara said, opening the binder to reveal pages of handwritten entries, offshore bank codes, shipping manifests, and photos. "Three months before he died, Santino realized someone was diverting shipments of high-grade industrial metals from the Brooklyn docks. Millions of dollars were disappearing into shell companies registered in the Cayman Islands."
Landon leaned over the table, his sharp eyes scanning the neat columns of numbers. "This wasn't just stealing. This was funding an army."
"It was funding a takeover," Clara corrected, looking up at him. "Santino traced the offshore accounts. He realized the money wasn't going to the Falcone family. It was going to someone inside your own inner circle. Someone who was building a secondary network to wipe out both you and Santino in one stroke."
Landon’s jaw tightened. "Did Santino have a name?"
"He was two days away from confirming the final account signature," Clara explained, her voice trembling as the memory returned. "He told me he was meeting his source at a diner off Highway 9 on a Thursday night. He told me to stay in the office and lock the files in my safe." She swallowed hard, tears welling in her eyes. "He never made it to the diner. His car crashed twenty minutes after he left the estate."
Landon touched the edge of the leather binder, his fingers tracing his dead brother’s handwriting. "The police report said his brake lines rusted out."
"It was sabotage," Clara spat with bitter disgust. "I checked his vehicle maintenance logs the morning after he died. The mechanics at your main garage had cleared his car forty-eight hours earlier. Someone paid them off, or someone inside your house did it themselves."
Landon stood up straight, his gaze turning icy cold. "Which is why you ran."
"I had to," Clara said. "The night after Santino died, someone entered my apartment using a master key. They didn't break the lock. They had high-level access. I was hiding in the closet behind a pile of winter coats. I watched a man in a black coat search my desk for this binder."
Landon’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Did you see his face?"
"No," Clara whispered. "He wore a mask. But I saw his ring."
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Landon stepped closer. "What ring?"
"A gold signet ring," Clara said, looking directly into Landon's eyes. "With a black onyx stone carved in the shape of a crest. The exact same ring your head of security, Dominic Hale, wears on his left hand."
