Chapter 8 - the ledger in the floorboards
Dante stared at the threat. The ink was barely dry.
He gripped Rosa's shoulder, feeling the violent tremor running through her small frame. "Did you see who slipped it?"
"No," Rosa wept, pressing her hands against her face. "I heard heavy boots outside. By the time I opened the door, the corridor was empty."
Dante looked toward the bed where Sophia was still sleeping peacefully, clutching a small stuffed bear. The stakes were no longer about ghosts or syndicates; an innocent child was in the crosshairs.
"You're not leaving this room," Dante said, his voice deadly calm. "I am placing two loyal guards inside the room, not outside."
"Dante, please," Rosa grabbed his lapel, her brown eyes pleading with desperate intensity. "Carmela told me something else that day at the coffee shop. She said if anyone ever came after me, there was a ledger hidden in her sitting room. She said it was under the floorboards near the fireplace."
Dante pulled the sealed red-wax letter from his inner pocket—the one he had found under Carmela's photo earlier that evening. He broke the seal and opened the parchment.
In Carmela's neat hand: *The third oak plank from the hearth. Trust no one who carries the silver crest.*
Five minutes later, Dante and Rosa were inside the darkened sitting room. Dante knelt before the marble fireplace. He counted three planks back, slid the tip of his pocketknife into the groove, and pried upward.
The wood popped free with a dry groan.
Concealed in the hollow cavity beneath was a thin, leather-bound black ledger.
Dante pulled it out. Rosa held the flashlight while Dante flipped open the yellowed pages.
It was not syndicate accounting. It was a personal diary of transactions, written in Carmela’s hand during the last three months of her life.
Every entry detailed payments made from a private offshore account:
*May 12: $50,000 to Dr. Kenneth Vance - Private Toxicology.*
*June 4: $100,000 to Saint Jude’s Clinic - Bennett Trust.*
*July 19: Arsenic traces confirmed in daily Earl Grey tea. Origin: Household pantry.*
Dante felt the floor drop beneath him.
Carmela hadn't been sick. Someone had been slowly poisoning her with arsenic inside this very house.
And on the opposite page, dated two weeks before her death, was a single entry that made Dante’s blood run cold:
*Julian knows. He is helping me fake my death. If you are reading this, Dante, check the safe at the Chicago Harbor dockhouse.*
Dante looked up at Rosa. "She faked her death."
Before Rosa could speak, the sitting room door swung open.
Marco stood in the threshold, flanked by four armed syndicate enforcers who answered directly to the council.
May you like
Marco’s gun was out.
"Step away from the ledger, Dante," Marco said calmly. "The council has declared you unfit. You're relieved of command."
