Chapter 2 - Blood on the Ledger
"Explain," I snarled, every nerve ending in my body firing at once. The rage that had slept inside me for three years flared to life, a roaring inferno fighting back the cold dread. Marcus had been my right hand since we were twenty. He sat beside me at Caleb's funeral, shedding real tears, kissing my cheek, swearing on his mother’s grave that he would help me carry the empire.
Clara pulled an old metal tin from an upper cabinet and placed it between us on the counter. Inside lay a cracked USB drive, a tarnished silver dog tag with Caleb’s name stamped into the steel, and bloodstained medical run sheets with official city stamps.
"Caleb didn't lose control on wet asphalt," Clara said, her voice dropping to an urgent murmur. "His brake lines were deliberately sliced. When the emergency call came in, our rig was only three blocks away. We beat the police to the scene. Caleb was pinned beneath the steering column, bleeding internally, but he was conscious. He was fighting for his life, Vincent."
A suffocating pressure gripped my chest. I remembered the closed casket. Marcus had begged me not to open it, whispering that the impact had ruined my boy's handsome face, telling me to remember him as he was. I had listened to him. God help me, I had listened to the viper sitting on my shoulder.
"Caleb grabbed my jacket," Clara continued, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "He knew who I was because my younger sister, Elena, had been dating him in secret for almost a year. Caleb was trying to escape your world, Vincent. He didn't want the empire. He had discovered Marcus was skimming millions from the family shipping ports and laundering it through rival cartels. Caleb had downloaded the financial logs onto that drive. He was driving to meet you that night to warn you that Marcus was planning a coup."
The room spun. All the missed calls from Caleb that evening. The frantic voicemail I had ignored because I was sitting in a sit-down meeting with the Jersey bosses, telling him I would call him back when business was done.
"Caleb looked right at me," Clara whispered, her knuckles turning white against the laminate. "He begged me to protect Elena and their baby. Elena was pregnant, Vincent. Marcus knew. A black SUV pulled up behind my ambulance. Marcus stepped out with two hitmen. They told me to step aside and let the boy bleed out. When I refused, they pulled their guns. Caleb threw a shattered piece of glass into Marcus's face, buying me just enough time to scramble into the ditch and disappear into the woods."
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"And Elena?" I rasped, the words tearing my throat.
"Marcus found her three days later," Clara said, tears finally breaking past her lashes. "A staged hit-and-run outside her apartment. But she had already hidden Maya with me. I took the baby, faked my own drowning with the help of a paramedic friend at the morgue, and disappeared into this hole. I’ve lived like a ghost for ten years, Vincent. Waiting for the day I had enough proof to bring him down without you shooting me on sight."
