CHAPTER 3 — THE SECRET HIDDEN BENEATH MY DELIVERY JACKET
The rain didn't stop for another hour.
Neither did the questions.
Dominic had moved my mother to the bedroom and called a private physician.
I stood in the kitchen, staring at the black key.
It looked insignificant.
Small.
Cold.
Almost worthless.
Yet three men had just shot through my apartment window because of it.
I turned it over in my fingers.
The symbol was still there.
A circle.
An M inside it.
Dominic stood across from me.
“You recognize the symbol?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
He studied me.
“You're lying.”
I looked up.
“I've known you for less than three hours.”
“And?”
“And I don't owe you my secrets.”
He almost smiled.
“Fair.”
The physician came out of the bedroom.
“She needs rest.”
“How bad is she?”
“No serious injuries. Bruising around the wrists. Her blood pressure is elevated.”
I nodded.
“Can she travel?”
“Not tonight.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Then she stays here.”
I frowned.
“My apartment was just attacked.”
“Exactly.”
“So where am I supposed to take her?”
“My house.”
“No.”
“Avery.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“I don't need another billionaire deciding where my mother should live.”
His expression softened slightly.
“I wasn't offering because you're poor.”
“Then why?”
“Because whoever came here knows your address.”
I said nothing.
“And they know about your mother.”
That silenced me.
Dominic continued.
“You need somewhere they can't reach easily.”
I folded my arms.
“And your mansion is safer?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody enters my property without me knowing.”
I looked at him.
“Except Vanessa.”
His jaw tightened.
For the first time, I saw irritation flash across his face.
“Vanessa doesn't control my security.”
“Apparently she controls your birthday parties.”
“She won't be there tonight.”
I looked toward the bedroom.
Mom was asleep.
I hated the idea of leaving.
But I hated the idea of staying even more.
“Fine.”
Dominic nodded.
“We leave in ten minutes.”
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
“Your father told you never to trust the Morettis.”
My blood ran cold.
“Who is this?”
“You're holding something that belongs to us.”
I looked at the key.
“Who?”
“The people your father betrayed.”
Dominic immediately moved closer.
I put the call on speaker.
The voice continued.
“You have twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours for what?”
“To return the key.”
“And if I don't?”
A pause.
Then—
“We take your mother instead.”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Dominic took it from my hand.
He checked the number.
Blocked.
“Can you trace it?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You seem very calm.”
“I've had practice.”
“People threatened your family too?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Because of your father?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
He was silent for several seconds.
Then—
“My father disappeared when I was twenty-two.”
I remembered.
“The same night mine died.”
“Yes.”
“You think it's connected.”
“I don't think.”
He looked at the key.
“I know.”
We left the apartment shortly afterward.
Two SUVs surrounded us.
I sat beside Mom.
Dominic drove.
I expected him to take us to the Moretti mansion.
Instead, he drove downtown.
“To your house?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“Somewhere nobody knows you exist.”
Twenty minutes later, we entered an underground parking structure beneath an ordinary office building.
Dominic parked.
A hidden elevator opened.
We went down.
Then down again.
The doors opened into a private residence beneath the city.
I stared.
“You have an underground apartment?”
“Safe house.”
“Of course you do.”
He gave me a look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He almost smiled.
“Good.”
Mom was placed in a private bedroom.
A nurse arrived.
Security locked down every entrance.
For the first time that night, I could breathe.
I walked into the kitchen.
Dominic was standing there, pouring coffee.
He handed me a cup.
I stared at it.
“You remembered how I take it?”
“I noticed at the mansion.”
“Black?”
“Two sugars.”
I looked at him.
“You notice everything.”
“Yes.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It is.”
I took the coffee.
“Why did you help me?”
He leaned against the counter.
“I don't know yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have questions.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
I laughed softly.
“I deliver food.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You used to compete.”
My smile disappeared.
“How do you know that?”
“Because eight years ago, there was a fighter named Avery Carter.”
I froze.
“She won twenty-seven consecutive matches.”
I looked away.
“She disappeared after her father died.”
Dominic continued.
“She was expected to qualify for nationals.”
“I quit.”
“I know.”
“Then you know enough.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“I know she trained under Michael Carter.”
I said nothing.
“And I know Michael wasn't just a maintenance supervisor.”
My fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
“What was he?”
Dominic looked directly at me.
“A financial investigator.”
I laughed bitterly.
“My father fixed machines.”
“He investigated financial crimes inside corporations.”
“No.”
“He was assigned to Northstar after suspicious transactions appeared.”
I shook my head.
“My father never told me.”
“He couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because someone inside Northstar was feeding information to the people he was investigating.”
I stared at him.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“Your father discovered a network moving money through legitimate companies.”
“How much?”
“Over four hundred million dollars.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Northstar was only one piece.”
“What was the network?”
“Construction companies. Shipping firms. Private security. Restaurants.”
I looked at him.
“And your family?”
“Part of it.”
I stepped back.
“You're telling me my father was investigating your family?”
“My father's business empire was being used.”
“By whom?”
“We don't know.”
I looked at the black key.
“The ledger.”
Dominic nodded.
“Your father kept records.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
“Then what good is the key?”
He pointed toward my delivery jacket.
“Maybe you've been carrying the answer without realizing it.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Your jacket.”
I looked down.
The black delivery jacket I'd worn for months.
“What about it?”
“Take it off.”
I stared.
“Excuse me?”
“The stitching.”
I looked at the inside seam.
There was a thick line running down the left side.
I'd never noticed it.
Dominic handed me a small knife.
“Cut it.”
I hesitated.
Then I sliced the seam.
Something metallic dropped onto the table.
A tiny rectangular object.
Not a key.
A memory card.
I stared at it.
Dominic's expression changed.
“That's it.”
“What?”
“The Black Ledger.”
I looked at the tiny card.
“How could this have been in my jacket?”
“Your father.”
I remembered.
After Dad died, I'd kept his old work jacket.
When I started delivering food, my own jacket tore.
I'd used his old one.
I'd forgotten where it came from.
Dominic took a breath.
“Your father hid it where nobody would search.”
“In my delivery jacket.”
“Exactly.”
I stared at the memory card.
Then I noticed a second thing.
A tiny engraving.
Three numbers.
17-04-36.
“What does that mean?”
Dominic's face became pale.
“I know the first two.”
“Seventeen. Four.”
“Yes.”
“What are they?”
“Locations.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“One is the Northstar plant.”
“And the other?”
“My father's private warehouse.”
My heart stopped.
“Your father's warehouse?”
“Yes.”
“The man who disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“And the last number?”
Dominic stared at it.
“Thirty-six.”
“What does that mean?”
He didn't answer.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression changed instantly.
“Who is it?”
He answered.
“Speak.”
A man's voice came through.
I couldn't hear the words.
But I saw Dominic's face.
The color disappeared.
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“The warehouse has been opened.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“By who?”
He grabbed his coat.
“We're going there.”
I stood.
“What about Mom?”
“My security team stays with her.”
“And if this is a trap?”
Dominic looked at me.
“It is.”
I stared.
“Then why are we going?”
“Because whoever opened that warehouse…”
He looked at the memory card in my hand.
“…wants us to find something.”
“What?”
Dominic opened the elevator.
“I think your father left it there.”
The doors closed behind us.
And neither of us noticed the tiny red light blinking inside the safe house.
Someone was watching us.
Someone who had been watching me long before Dominic Moretti ever did.
And on a monitor somewhere across Chicago, a man leaned back in a chair and whispered—
“She finally found the ledger.”
May you like
Then he smiled.
“Now we can bring her father home.”
