Chapter 4 - The Ledger That Belonged to Her Father
Gabriel Moretti had been Lorenzo's closest friend until the age of sixteen.
They were cousins by blood but raised almost like brothers.
Gabriel was Vittorio's only son.
According to family history, he died in a boating accident off Long Island at twenty-one.
No body was ever recovered.
Vittorio held a funeral anyway.
Khloe stared at Lorenzo across the library.
"So your criminal family has an alarming number of people who die without anyone seeing bodies."
Mateo nodded.
"That is statistically fair."
Lorenzo shot him a look.
"What?"
Mateo shrugged.
"She's right."
The sequence 880314 appeared forty-three times in Nathan's cipher.
Each occurrence corresponded to a transfer from the Orpheus network.
Gabriel's birth date was not sentimental.
It was an account key.
Someone had used Gabriel's identity to control the hidden financial network.
"If Gabriel died fifteen years ago," Khloe said, "why are transactions still using his code?"
Lorenzo answered.
"Because either Vittorio used his son's identity after his death..."
"Or Gabriel isn't dead."
Nobody liked the second possibility.
Mateo began searching privately.
No government death certificate existed for Gabriel Moretti.
Only a family declaration.
A cemetery plot contained an empty coffin.
Khloe rubbed her forehead.
"Does anyone in your family die normally?"
"My grandmother."
"How?"
"Ninety-four. Sleeping."
"Finally."
"She was holding a pistol."
Khloe stared.
Mateo laughed.
Lorenzo did not.
By morning another revelation emerged.
Nathan's cipher did not merely document theft.
It recorded investments.
Construction projects.
Political campaigns.
Real-estate acquisitions.
Judges.
Union officials.
Police commanders.
The Orpheus network had spent seventeen years buying influence across New York.
It was not a criminal account.
It was an invisible government.
Vittorio had built something larger than Lorenzo's organization.
Lorenzo controlled docks, warehouses, and men.
Vittorio controlled institutions.
That explained why Isabella's disappearance had been so clean.
Why Nathan's accident raised no questions.
Why Marina's fire inspection report vanished.
Why Salvatore's medical examiner retired three weeks after signing the death certificate.
Khloe looked across the table.
"You can't fight this the way you normally fight people."
Lorenzo's eyes were cold.
"Meaning?"
"You can't shoot a network."
Mateo looked impressed.
"She really has learned quickly."
Lorenzo ignored him.
"What do you suggest?"
"Follow the money."
"Arthur already did."
"No. Arthur moved money. He didn't understand all of it."
Khloe held up the workbook.
"My father did."
For twelve hours Khloe translated Nathan's cipher.
She remembered every sequence.
Her childhood pencil marks filled margins beside his hidden calculations.
At one point Lorenzo noticed a crooked drawing of a cat.
"Mr. Whiskers?"
"I was nine. Different cat."
"You've always had cats?"
"They're less complicated than men."
Mateo nodded solemnly.
"She continues being correct."
The final decoded path led to a safety deposit box inside a private Manhattan bank.
Nathan had apparently opened it under the name Helena Grant.
Khloe did not recognize the name.
Diane did.
"My mother's maiden name."
Nathan had built a fallback only his wife could identify.
The next morning Lorenzo arranged access.
Inside the box they found three things.
A cassette recorder.
A sealed envelope addressed to Khloe.
And a leather ledger.
The ledger was old.
Dark blue.
Nathan Higgins had written every major Orpheus transaction by hand.
Dates.
Amounts.
Recipients.
Payments connected to murders disguised as accidents.
Khloe stopped when she reached her father's name.
NATHAN HIGGINS — TERMINATION AUTHORIZED.
Approved:
V.M.
Her hands became numb.
Lorenzo read over her shoulder.
He said nothing.
There was nothing adequate to say.
Khloe opened the envelope.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, then I failed to make it home.
I hope you are old enough now to understand something I could never explain when you were nine.
You were never the reason I was afraid.
You were the reason I kept going.
There are men who believe money gives them the right to decide what truth survives.
They are wrong.
Numbers do not care who is powerful.
Numbers remember.
And so do you.
Khloe stopped reading.
Tears fell onto the page.
Diane wrapped her arms around her.
Lorenzo walked away, giving them privacy.
The cassette contained Nathan's voice.
Seventeen years disappeared when Khloe heard it.
He sounded exactly as she remembered.
Tired.
Warm.
Alive.
Nathan described Orpheus.
Vittorio built it secretly while serving beside Salvatore.
At first he skimmed from illegal Moretti operations.
Then he used the money to purchase officials.
Eventually Vittorio intended to remove Salvatore and control the organization through Lorenzo, who was young and grieving.
Nathan had proof.
Then came the final revelation.
"Gabriel Moretti is involved."
Lorenzo stopped the tape.
Khloe looked at him.
"Keep playing."
He did.
Nathan explained that Gabriel discovered his father's network at nineteen.
Instead of exposing Vittorio, Gabriel joined him.
Father and son created duplicate identities.
The boating accident two years later allowed Gabriel to disappear publicly.
From then onward, he operated Orpheus internationally.
Khloe whispered, "He's alive."
Lorenzo looked devastated in a way she had never seen.
Gabriel had not died.
He had chosen Vittorio.
Chosen power.
Chosen disappearance.
And for fifteen years Lorenzo had mourned a man who had been helping manipulate his family.
The recorder continued.
Nathan's final words were directed at Salvatore Moretti.
"If Salvatore hears this, understand something. Your brother is not protecting the family. He is consuming it."
The tape ended.
Lorenzo walked out.
Khloe found him on the bank's rooftop terrace ten minutes later.
He stood in the winter wind without a coat.
"You'll freeze."
"I've survived worse."
She stood beside him.
"Did you love Gabriel?"
"He was my brother in every way that mattered."
"And your uncle?"
Lorenzo looked across Manhattan.
"He raised me after my father died."
Khloe understood then.
Vittorio's betrayal was not merely business.
The man Lorenzo needed to destroy had taught him how to shave.
How to drive.
How to negotiate.
Probably how to kill.
"Maybe there's another explanation."
"No."
Lorenzo's voice was quiet.
"Do not soften this for me."
Khloe looked at him.
"You do that a lot."
"What?"
"Act like pain becomes weakness if somebody names it."
He turned.
Most people lowered their eyes when Lorenzo looked at them that way.
Khloe did not.
"You are remarkably comfortable criticizing a man who could have you thrown from this building."
"You moved my desk into your office. It improved communication."
Something in Lorenzo finally cracked.
He laughed.
Not the quiet, brief sound Khloe had heard before.
A real laugh.
It surprised both of them.
Then he stopped.
His expression changed.
Khloe realized how close they were standing.
Wind moved loose strands of hair across her face.
Lorenzo lifted one hand.
He brushed them back.
Khloe's heart betrayed her immediately.
"This is a terrible idea," she whispered.
"What is?"
"Whatever your face is doing."
"My face is doing nothing."
"It is absolutely doing something."
His thumb rested near her temple.
Then Mateo opened the rooftop door.
"We have a problem."
Khloe stepped back so quickly she nearly hit a chair.
Lorenzo caught it before it fell.
Mateo pretended not to notice.
"Gabriel contacted us."
Silence.
"How?"
"Encrypted video."
They returned downstairs.
Gabriel appeared on Mateo's tablet.
He was older.
Bearded.
But unmistakably related to Vittorio and Lorenzo.
"Lorenzo."
His voice alone made Lorenzo's face harden.
"I imagine Nathan Higgins finally managed to speak from the grave."
Gabriel smiled.
"That little secretary of yours is impressive."
Khloe whispered, "I hate when villains know my job title."
Gabriel continued.
"You have something belonging to us."
The ledger.
"I want it."
Lorenzo leaned closer.
"Come collect it."
Gabriel smiled.
"I would, but I'm occupied."
The camera shifted.
Dominic Gallow sat tied to a chair.
His face was bruised.
Khloe stared.
Gabriel had kidnapped the rival boss.
Dominic looked into the camera.
"Don't give him a damn thing."
Gabriel struck him.
Then smiled again.
"You have twenty-four hours."
Lorenzo said, "I don't care if Gallow dies."
Dominic shouted, "Charming!"
Gabriel laughed.
"I thought you might say that."
The camera moved again.
Khloe's blood turned cold.
A second chair appeared.
Diane Higgins sat tied to it.
Khloe stopped breathing.
Her mother had supposedly been under Moretti protection at Oyster Bay.
Khloe turned toward Mateo.
"How?"
Mateo was already reaching for his phone.
Gabriel leaned toward the camera.
"Your security is not as perfect as you think."
Khloe stepped toward the screen.
"Mom!"
Diane tried to smile.
"I'm okay."
Gabriel placed a pistol against her head.
Khloe went completely still.
"The ledger," Gabriel said.
"Midnight tomorrow."
Lorenzo's voice became deadly.
"If you hurt her—"
"This isn't your mother."
Gabriel's eyes moved toward Khloe.
"Although judging by the way you're looking at the secretary, I suspect that distinction may be becoming inconvenient."
The feed ended.
Khloe looked at Lorenzo.
Her face had lost all color.
"Give them the ledger."
"No."
"That's my mother."
"And if I give Gabriel the only evidence capable of destroying Orpheus, thousands of people remain under his control."
"I don't care."
Lorenzo stepped toward her.
"You will."
"No!"
Khloe shoved him.
Mateo looked away.
Nobody shoved Lorenzo Moretti.
Khloe did it again.
"That is my mother!"
Lorenzo caught her wrists.
"I will get her back."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
For the next sixteen hours, Moretti's entire organization searched.
No result.
Gabriel had planned too carefully.
Then Khloe noticed the kidnapping footage.
A digital clock behind Diane.
11:42.
But Oyster Bay security logs showed Diane vanished at 12:03.
Impossible.
Unless the clock was wrong.
Or the footage had been prerecorded.
Khloe remembered a sound.
During Gabriel's transmission, a train horn sounded twice.
Not subway.
Freight.
Then church bells.
Seven strikes.
She mapped rail lines near Catholic churches.
Mateo narrowed locations.
Three possibilities.
One stood beside an abandoned cold-storage warehouse previously owned by a shell company found in Nathan's ledger.
Lorenzo looked at Khloe.
"Stay here."
She laughed.
"Absolutely not."
"Khloe."
"That sentence stopped working around the third murder attempt."
The rescue happened seventeen minutes before Gabriel's deadline.
Lorenzo's men entered from the river.
Mateo cut electricity.
Khloe remained in an armored vehicle as instructed for approximately four minutes.
Then she heard gunfire.
She got out.
Later, Lorenzo would yell about this decision for nearly an hour.
At the time Khloe did not care.
She entered through a loading door.
Diane was inside.
So was Dominic.
Gabriel was gone.
He had left minutes earlier.
Khloe cut her mother's restraints.
Diane sobbed against her.
Dominic watched.
"Your daughter is insane."
Diane laughed through tears.
"She's always been like this."
Outside, Lorenzo found Khloe.
His expression suggested he was deciding whether to hug her or strangle her.
"I told you to stay in the vehicle."
"I made an executive decision."
"You are a secretary."
"Executive secretary."
He stared.
Then pulled her against him.
Hard.
Khloe froze.
His face pressed briefly against her hair.
For one second, the entire violent world disappeared.
Then he released her.
Dominic approached.
Blood covered one side of his face.
"We have a bigger problem."
Lorenzo turned.
Dominic held a phone taken from one of Gabriel's men.
On it was a photograph of Moretti Tower.
A countdown clock appeared beneath the image.
Forty-eight hours.
Dominic looked at Lorenzo.
"Your cousin isn't trying to steal the company."
"What does he want?"
"To destroy it."
The countdown continued.
47:59:31.
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