Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail of a Dead Man
Odette did not jump. She slowly turned her head, her lips curling into a cold, contemptuous smile as Damian stepped out from the darkness of the shipping containers. Behind him, Felix had already moved to the flank, an expandable steel baton sliding from his sleeve with a sharp, metallic snap.
"Damian," Odette murmured, not lowering the weapon. "I told you not to follow the girl. You always were overly curious. Just like your father. It was his worst flaw."
"Let him stand up," Damian said, his voice flat, dangerously quiet. He walked forward across the slush, ignoring the two hired men who shifted nervously, eyeing Felix's posture and the cold calculation in Damian's eyes. "Call off your dogs and let my father stand."
Odette laughed—a sharp, brittle sound that cut through the winter wind. "Your father? Damian, look at him! He’s an incoherent derelict! A ghost! Do you think the board of directors will accept the ramblings of a madman who has lived under a bridge for a decade? Do you think the courts will overturn fifteen years of legal signatures based on the word of a thief maid and a broken beggar?"
"They won't have to rely on his word," Damian said, stopping ten feet from the barrel of her gun. He reached into his coat pocket.
One of the hired men stepped forward, but Damian ignored him, pulling out a heavy, leather-bound volume tied with rotted brass wire. The leather was mildewed, smelling of river silt and old paper, but the gold leaf on the spine still read: Ashford Maritime Accounts – 2010.
Odette’s smile vanished. Her pale eyes flicked from the ledger to Damian's face, the color draining from her cheeks.
"The third plank from the hearth," Damian said softly. "You searched the study, you searched the safe, you searched his office at the docks. But you forgot that when my grandfather built the trophy room, he installed a smuggler's cavity beneath the floorboards to hide bootleg whiskey during Prohibition. My father kept the duplicate wire receipts there. Every transfer to your brother’s accounts in Grand Cayman. Every forged bill of lading. Every purchase order for industrial thallium sulphate from the chemical plant in New Jersey."
Victor looked up from the mud, a faint, proud smile touching his cracked lips. "He always was smart, Odette. Smarter than both of us."
"Shut up!" Odette shrieked, her composed facade finally shattering into raw, venomous fury. Her arm trembled, the barrel of the gun wavering between Victor's chest and Damian's head. "I built that empire! When your mother died, this family was drowning in debt! I balanced the ledgers! I arranged the acquisitions! I raised you, Damian! You would be nothing without me!"
"You didn't raise me," Damian said, stepping directly into the line of fire, closing the distance between them to five feet. "You kept me sedated with grief so you could sign my name on stock transfers. You made me hate this city because every street corner reminded me of a man you tried to murder."
"Stay back!" she screamed, her finger tightening on the trigger. "I’ll kill him! I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through his head and throw him in the tide!"
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
From behind the concrete pilings, Elise burst forward, hurling a heavy cast-iron soup ladle with all the strength in her body. The iron struck Odette’s wrist with a sickening crack. The gun discharged with a deafening roar, the bullet kicking up a spray of icy mud harmlessly into the river.
Before Odette could recover, Felix surged forward like a panther. In two blinding motions, he drove his elbow into the nearest thug’s jaw, dropped him to the pavement, and wrenched Odette’s arm behind her back, forcing her down onto her knees in the freezing slush. The second hired man threw his crowbar onto the ground, raised his hands in the air, and backed away into the shadows.
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Damian didn't look at Odette. He didn't look at the gun lying in the dirt.
He dropped to his knees in the mud, right in front of the old man in the oversized navy coat.
