Chapter 4 – The Fire in the Ledger

The red light on Julian’s detonator blinked like a slow heartbeat.

“Alive?” Daniel whispered, the word barely escaping his lips.

“Where is she?!” I screamed, stepping out from behind Daniel, the heavy gun in my hand shaking violently. “Where is my mother?!”

Julian looked at me with an expression of pure, unadulterated pity. “She’s exactly where she’s been for the last sixteen years, Emma. Locked in the basement of the Carter Grand Hotel. Right beneath your feet while you scrubbed the floors.”

The world tilted. My vision blurred.

My mother hadn’t disappeared into the night. She hadn’t run away. She had been a prisoner in the very building where I worked, trapped in the dark while I polished chandeliers above her.

“Victoria knew,” Daniel realized, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm. “She kept her there. She used the ledgers as an excuse to keep her alive, hoping Claire would eventually break and reveal the location.”

“Exactly,” Julian smiled. “But now that you’ve so graciously handed me the key, Victoria has no reason to keep her alive. In fact, Victoria just sent her personal guard to the basement to clean up the mess. And the explosive rigged to the hotel’s foundation will ensure the ledgers—and Claire—burn to ash.”

Julian raised the detonator.

“Say goodbye to your empire, Daniel.”

Before Julian’s thumb could press the button, a deafening gunshot rang out across the pier.

Julian screamed, dropping the detonator as blood exploded from his shoulder.

I stood there, both hands gripping the smoking handgun, my ears ringing violently. I hadn’t thought. I hadn’t hesitated. I had just pulled the trigger.

Julian fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder, his men shouting and raising their weapons.

“Get down!” Daniel roared, tackling me and Noah to the wooden deck just as a hail of bullets tore through the air where we had been standing.

Daniel didn’t wait for his men. He pulled a sleek, suppressed pistol from his shoulder holster and returned fire with lethal precision. Two of Julian’s men dropped to the ground instantly.

“Noah, the detonator!” Daniel yelled over the gunfire.

Noah scrambled across the bloody wood, grabbing the black plastic device before Julian could reach it with his good hand. Noah kicked Julian hard in the chest, sending the mafia boss sprawling onto his back, and scrambled back to us.

“I got it!” Noah panted, holding the device tight.

“We need to move!” Daniel ordered, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. “The hotel is three miles away. If Victoria’s men are in the basement, we have less than ten minutes before they execute your mother.”

We sprinted back to the armored SUV, diving inside as bullets pinged off the reinforced chassis. Daniel threw the car into reverse, spinning the wheel and tearing out of the shipping yard in a cloud of burning rubber.

I sat in the passenger seat, my hands still shaking from the recoil of the gun. I had just shot a man. But I didn’t feel remorse. I only felt a burning, desperate need to reach the hotel.

“How did Victoria hide her in the hotel for sixteen years?” I asked, looking at Daniel. “I know every inch of that building. There are no hidden basements.”

“There’s the old prohibition vault,” Daniel said grimly, swerving onto the highway. “My father bricked it up in the nineties. I thought it was completely sealed off. Only Victoria and my father knew the old access codes.”

He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “She was right there. For sixteen years, the woman I loved was sleeping fifty feet beneath me, and I never knew.”

“We’re going to get her,” Noah said fiercely from the backseat, clutching the detonator. “We have the key. We have the detonator. They have nothing.”

Daniel looked in the rearview mirror at the son he had just met, a flicker of profound pride crossing his face. “You’re brave, kid. Just like your mother.”

We skidded to a violent halt in the loading dock of the Carter Grand Hotel. Daniel didn’t bother with the main lobby. He led us through the service corridors, using his master keycard to bypass the security doors.

We reached the sub-basement. The air was thick with dust and the smell of old stone.

At the end of the corridor, a heavy steel door stood slightly ajar.

Two men in black suits were standing outside it, holding suppressed weapons.

Daniel didn’t hesitate. He stepped out from behind the corner and fired twice. The two men crumpled to the floor before they even registered his presence.

“Stay behind me,” Daniel ordered, pushing the steel door open.

We stepped into the old vault.

It was a small, damp room lit by a single, harsh bulb. In the center of the room, tied to a wooden chair, was a woman.

Her hair was graying and matted, her clothes hanging loosely from her frail frame. But when she lifted her head and looked at us, the fierce, defiant light in her brown eyes was unmistakable.

“Mom,” I whispered, the word tearing out of my throat.

Claire Bennett stared at me, then at Noah, and finally, at the man standing in front of us.

“Daniel,” she breathed, tears instantly spilling down her dirt-streaked cheeks.

Before Daniel could rush forward, a cold, sharp voice echoed from the shadows of the vault.

“I wouldn’t take another step, Daniel.”

Victoria stepped out from behind a stack of rusted metal crates. She was holding a silver revolver, pointed directly at my mother’s head.

“You’re too late,” Victoria smiled, a desperate, manic gleam in her eyes. “The ledgers are rigged to burn. And so is she.”

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