Chapter 3 - The Book of Secrets
By midnight, Logan had returned to the Bedford safehouse. The storm had returned to the lower valley, thunder rattling the window frames of the upstairs bedroom where Nova and Luna were sleeping under the watchful eye of the nurse.
In the downstairs study, Logan and Marcus sat surrounded by the contents of the leather sketchbook. They had extracted each page carefully, aligning the dates Elena had noted in the margins with the family’s financial ledgers from the last decade.
"She wasn't just drawing, Boss," Marcus said, pointing to a series of numerical sequences hidden within the shading of the drawing of Greystone Manor. "These aren't artistic notations. These are the routing numbers for the offshore accounts your father established before his stroke in 2012."
"The ones Vincent claimed were seized by the federal government during the racketeering sweep," Logan muttered, his eyes tracing his sister’s handwriting. "She knew he lied. She knew Vincent was the one who tipped off the FBI to my father’s logistics offices to clear the way for his own expansion into the docks."
"Look at the last entry," Marcus whispered, turning to a page that had been stuck together by the damp air of the porch.
It was a letter. Not a drawing, but a full page of text written in Elena’s hurried, elegant script, dated three weeks before her reported 'accident' in Rosewood.
Logan,
If you are reading this, it means Daniel’s brakes have failed, or the stairs in this house have finally done what Vincent always wanted them to do. I have spent eight years running from the man who called himself our protector. The night my car went off the road on the Hudson highway, it wasn't an accident. Gianni was in the backseat. He told me that if I didn't hand over our father’s central ledger—the one that contains the names of the judges and senators Vincent bought during the port union strike—I would never see the sunrise.
I jumped, Logan. I jumped into the river before the car hit the guardrail. The current carried me five miles downstream before a barge captain pulled me out. He was a good man. He didn't know the Marchetti name, and he didn't care about the blood on my face. He helped me disappear.
I found Daniel. I found a life. I gave you two beautiful nieces who have our mother’s eyes and our father’s stubbornness. But Vincent found us again. He killed Daniel in the ravine. He’s coming for me next because he knows I still have the ledger under the stone.
Do not trust the family, Logan. Do not trust your captains. The ledger is buried beneath the floorboards of the old sugar refinery on Mulberry Street, exactly four paces from the northern foundation pillar where our father used to store the salt pork. Find it. Protect the girls. Kill the wolf before he devours what’s left of our blood.
Your sister, Elena.
Logan’s hand slammed down on the mahogany desk with a force that shattered the glass face of his silver watch. The iron in his eyes had turned to pure, incandescent white fire. Every memory of his sister’s funeral—the empty casket, the false tears of his uncle, the heavy hand on his shoulder promising protection—it had all been a performance directed by the man who had ordered her execution.
"Marcus," Logan said, his voice so quiet it was terrifying. "How many men do we have in the city who aren't on Vincent’s payroll?"
"Ten," Marcus replied instantly. "The tactical unit from the logistics yards. Men who served with me in the sandbox before we took the Marchetti shield. They don't owe Vincent a nickel."
May you like
"Get them into the Mulberry Street refinery by two AM," Logan commanded, standing up and pulling his weapon from his waist, checking the slide with a clean, metallic click. "We’re going to dig up my father’s ledger. And if Gianni’s men are waiting for us, we’re going to leave them under the concrete."
Before they could move toward the door, a low, terrified scream echoed from the second floor of the safehouse.
