Chapter 14 - Burn the LedgerThe room became a prison made of guns.
Carlo stood at the center.
Vincent remained still.
Sal moved beside him.
“Your father had contingency plans.”
Vincent looked at him.
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because every person who knew became a target.”
Daniel stared at the armed men.
“Who are they?”
“People your father ruined.”
Vincent understood.
Judges.
Former police.
Business owners.
Families.
Witnesses.
People who had spent years waiting for someone to break the machine.
His father had built the machine.
Then secretly built the people who could destroy it.
Carlo looked at Vincent.
“You think you're free?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Carlo smiled again.
“You're finally learning.”
He reached into his coat.
Sal raised his weapon.
“Slowly.”
Carlo pulled out a cigarette.
He lit it.
“You can't destroy the ledger.”
“Watch me.”
Carlo looked toward the shelves.
“You burn it, everyone who depends on it loses everything.”
“They never depended on it.”
Carlo laughed.
“You don't understand power.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“No.”
He looked around the vault.
“I understand fear.”
He picked up the ledger.
“People kept this book hidden because they thought secrets made them powerful.”
He opened it.
“This is not power.”
He tore out a page.
Carlo's face changed.
“Stop.”
Vincent tore another.
“You built your empire on information.”
Another page.
“Then information is what destroys it.”
He handed the pages to Sal.
“Copy everything.”
Sal nodded.
“Already started.”
Carlo looked at Daniel.
“You betrayed me.”
Daniel answered quietly.
“I was never yours.”
Carlo looked at Elena.
“You.”
She said nothing.
Then he looked at Maria.
“You should have stayed dead.”
Maria stepped forward.
“I did.”
Carlo frowned.
“For eighteen years.”
She smiled.
“And you never learned the difference between being dead and being gone.”
Vincent almost laughed.
Then the lights went out.
Gunfire erupted.
People screamed.
Someone crashed into a table.
Vincent grabbed Lily.
“Down!”
He covered her with his body.
A second later the emergency lights came on.
Carlo was gone.
The vault door stood open.
Vincent ran after him.
They emerged into the rain.
The estate gates were open.
A black car disappeared down the road.
Daniel stopped beside him.
“You won't catch him.”
Vincent looked at the taillights.
“I don't need to.”
Daniel frowned.
Vincent held up the ninety-second coin.
“He took the bait.”
“What bait?”
Vincent turned the coin over.
There was writing on the back.
A location.
The old Romano marina.
Daniel's face went pale.
“No.”
“What?”
“That's where the last ledger copy is.”
Vincent stared.
“And Carlo knows it.”
Daniel nodded.
“He'll burn everything.”
Vincent looked toward the road.
“Then we go first.”
They reached the marina twenty minutes later.
The docks were empty.
The water black beneath the rain.
A warehouse stood at the far end.
Its doors were open.
Inside, flames already climbed the walls.
Vincent ran toward them.
“Lily, stay back.”
He entered the warehouse.
Boxes burned everywhere.
Documents.
Photographs.
Tapes.
Years of evidence.
Vincent searched frantically.
Then he saw something beneath the desk.
The glass jar.
Still intact.
He picked it up.
One coin remained inside.
Not ninety-one.
Not ninety-two.
One.
A tiny gold coin.
He turned it over.
A date was engraved on it.
Tomorrow.
And beneath it:
COURTHOUSE. 9:00 A.M.
Vincent stared.
Carlo hadn't been burning evidence.
He had been moving it.
The biggest secret had never been in the vault.
It was waiting in public.
At nine in the morning.
May you like
And whoever opened that file would expose every name in the Romano empire.
Including Vincent's.
