Chapter 5 - The Maid He Pretended to Betray
Vincent looked at the flash drive for a long time.
Charmian looked at him.
That was worse.
She did not plead.
She did not rush to explain.
She simply waited to see what kind of man he was going to become now that suspicion had given him an excuse.
The guard holding the evidence bag shifted.
“Boss?”
Vincent held out his hand.
The guard gave him the drive.
“Search her room.”
Evan exploded.
“No.”
Charmian flinched as if Vincent had struck her.
Mrs. Gable said, “Mr. Costa—”
“Search it.”
Charmian’s face closed.
There it was.
The same judgment she had watched adults give her father after his death.
Evidence first.
Human being second.
Vincent looked at her.
“Charmian, you’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
Evan stepped between them despite the pain in his ribs.
“You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Vincent’s men tensed.
Vincent did not.
He looked at the sixteen-year-old boy trying to shield his sister from a room full of armed men.
Then he said quietly, “I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Pike died downstairs.”
“Evan,” Charmian said.
“No. He just told them to search your room. He thinks you did it.”
Charmian’s gaze stayed on Vincent.
“Do you?”
The room became very still.
Vincent could have answered truthfully.
He could have said no.
He could have told her the evidence was too neat, the timing too perfect, the motive too carefully arranged.
But there was a traitor inside his organization.
A traitor who needed to believe the frame had worked.
Vincent had learned long ago that sometimes the only way to catch a liar was to give him the story he wanted to hear.
So he made a choice Charmian would not forgive quickly.
“I think I don’t know you.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But he saw it.
He would remember it later.
“Right,” she said.
She looked at Mrs. Gable.
“Stay with Evan.”
Then she walked toward the door without waiting for Vincent.
He followed.
The guards escorted them through the house.
Charmian said nothing until they reached the lower level.
Vincent opened a steel door.
She stopped.
Inside was not a cell.
It was a secure office with a desk, couch, private bathroom, and no windows.
She laughed bitterly.
“A nicer cage.”
“It locks from the inside.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
Vincent stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
He turned the lock.
Then he took out his phone, removed the battery pack, and placed it on the desk.
Charmian’s anger shifted into confusion.
“What are you doing?”
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Pretending to believe you.”
She stared.
He held up the flash drive.
“This is planted.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You just searched my room.”
“I need whoever planted it to think I’ve isolated you.”
“You could have told me that upstairs.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who is listening.”
“That includes my brother.”
“I know.”
“You made him think you were arresting me.”
“I needed everyone to believe it.”
Charmian walked away from him, furious.
“You people are unbelievable.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not an apology.”
“No.”
“Do you know how many times I watched people look at my father’s name and decide they already knew who he was?”
Vincent stayed silent.
“You did that to me in front of Evan.”
“I know.”
She turned.
“And you’re okay with it?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
Vincent leaned against the desk.
“I’m not asking you to forgive the tactic.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to help me prove who planted this.”
Charmian crossed her arms.
“Why me?”
“Because whoever did it underestimated you.”
“They underestimated you too if they think you’ll believe a flash drive in a maid’s locker.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“Exactly.”
He inserted the drive into an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
Shipping schedules.
Security maps.
Payroll records.
Private account summaries.
Charmian leaned closer despite herself.
Vincent pointed.
“Look at the creation dates.”
She scanned them.
“Last month. Two weeks ago. Four days ago.”
“Now look at metadata.”
Charmian clicked through the properties.
Her eyebrows pulled together.
“These weren’t created on the drive.”
“No.”
“They were copied from a server.”
“Yes.”
Before she did, Charmian opened the staff-access spreadsheet beside the file metadata.
“Wait.”
Vincent stopped.
“What?”
“These badge entries are fake too.”
She tapped the first timestamp.
“October seventh, twelve forty-three in the morning. I was in the St. Jude’s library until closing, then I took the eleven-ten bus home. My student card will show the exit time.”
She tapped another.
“And this one was Sunday night. I was working inventory at the grocery store. There are cameras over every aisle.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Then someone cloned your badge.”
“Or used a master account to attach my employee number after entering your office.”
“Damian had that level of access.”
Charmian nodded.
Her anger sharpened into concentration.
“Whoever did this wanted the evidence to look convincing at a glance, not under examination. They assumed you’d see my name and stop looking.”
Vincent’s mouth flattened.
“They assumed correctly about most men in my position.”
“But not you?”
He looked at her.
“I almost made you believe I had.”
“That is not the same thing as being clever.”
“No.”
For a moment they held each other’s gaze.
Then Charmian looked back at the screen.
The feeling that had haunted her since childhood shifted slightly. Her father had been condemned by numbers arranged to tell a lie. Now numbers were showing her how another lie had been built.
She understood, maybe for the first time, why Elias had refused to walk away.
Truth could be buried under paperwork, signatures, fear, and powerful names.
But if someone kept following the trail, eventually the arithmetic stopped cooperating with the story.
She scrolled down.
“Let’s see what else they thought nobody would check.”
She looked at the machine ID.
“DC-SEC-04.”
“Damian Cole’s office workstation.”
Charmian stared at Vincent.
“So Damian made the drive.”
“Or someone using his terminal did.”
“Then why plant it on me?”
“To give me a traitor I could understand.”
He pointed to another file.
“Open that.”
It was a spreadsheet.
Charmian scanned columns of transactions.
Her accounting training took over.
Amounts.
Dates.
Entities.
Something bothered her.
She leaned closer.
“These totals are wrong.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Where?”
“Here.”
She pointed.
“This says Costa Maritime transferred 2.4 million to North Harbor Logistics. But the quarterly total below treats it as 240,000.”
“Typo?”
“No. Look at the next one. Nine hundred thousand listed as ninety. Then 1.8 million listed as one-eighty.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
Charmian scrolled faster.
“They’re dropping a zero in the roll-up.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever reviews the summary sees smaller transfers than what actually moved.”
She clicked the recipient company.
North Harbor Logistics.
Then another.
Saint Meridian Educational Trust.
Then another.
Jude Academic Advancement Foundation.
Charmian froze.
“St. Jude’s.”
Vincent moved beside her.
She opened the underlying routing data.
“The money leaves your shipping companies, passes through these charities, and disappears into private holding accounts.”
“How much?”
She calculated quickly.
“On this drive alone? At least thirty-one million over four years.”
Vincent’s jaw hardened.
“And the final accounts?”
“Some are numbered. Some are coded.”
Charmian leaned in.
Then she saw a name.
T. MORROW CONSULTING.
Her stomach turned.
“He was being paid.”
Vincent looked at the screen.
Travis Morrow had received monthly transfers for more than eight years.
Not gambling winnings.
Not loans.
Salary.
Charmian’s face went pale.
“He didn’t marry my mother because Salvatore told him to once.”
“No.”
“He stayed on payroll.”
“Yes.”
“For eight years.”
Vincent’s voice softened.
“Yes.”
Charmian stepped away from the computer.
Her bandaged hands curled into fists.
“My whole childhood was a job to him.”
Vincent did not know what to say to that.
So he said nothing.
After a moment, Charmian wiped at her eyes angrily.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
They stood in silence.
Then Charmian looked back at the screen.
“If these transfers went through St. Jude’s, someone at the school approved them.”
“Yes.”
“Can we access the school’s public filings?”
Vincent raised an eyebrow.
“You’re asking the wrong criminal.”
She stared at him.
That surprised a laugh out of her.
It was tiny and unwilling.
But it was the first laugh he had heard from her.
Vincent found himself looking at her a second too long.
He turned back to the laptop.
“I have people who can get the filings.”
“I can get them. They’re public.”
“Right.”
“Do mafia bosses not use Google?”
“Careful.”
She almost smiled again.
Then a red light flashed above the secure door.
Vincent’s expression changed instantly.
Three short pulses.
His private signal from Matteo.
He crossed the room and unlocked the door.
Matteo entered.
“Search is complete.”
“What did you find?”
“In Charmian’s room? Nothing.”
Charmian crossed her arms.
“Shocking.”
Matteo ignored the sarcasm.
“But in Damian’s locker we found a burner phone hidden behind the backing panel.”
Vincent looked at him.
“Messages?”
“Mostly wiped. One survived.”
Matteo handed him a photograph of the screen.
The message had been sent at 2:11 a.m.
THE GIRL HAS THE BOX. PIKE FAILED. IF COSTA GETS THE LEDGER, BURN THE HOUSE FROM INSIDE.
Charmian read it.
“Sent by who?”
“Unregistered number,” Matteo said. “But we traced the last tower ping.”
Vincent waited.
Matteo’s face was grim.
“St. Jude’s campus.”
Charmian felt cold.
Her college.
Again.
Vincent asked, “Any sign of Damian?”
“No. But the river tunnel was open.”
“So he’s gone.”
“Looks that way.”
Charmian looked at the flash drive.
“Then the person at St. Jude’s knows Damian escaped.”
Matteo nodded.
“And thinks you’re locked up for spying.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
That was useful.
Charmian saw the idea form in his face.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re going to use me as bait.”
Matteo looked between them.
Vincent said, “I was going to say we can use the false story.”
“That is bait with better grammar.”
He almost argued.
Then Charmian pointed at the laptop.
“If they think you arrested me, they may stop watching me. Which means I can go to campus.”
“No.”
She blinked.
“You just had the idea.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because someone shot at you four hours ago.”
“And someone at my school has been moving millions of dollars and helping terrorize my brother.”
“You are not trained for this.”
“I’m trained to follow money.”
Vincent stared at her.
She stared back.
Matteo sighed.
“I’m going to leave before this becomes a two-hour argument.”
Vincent did not look away from Charmian.
“Stay.”
Matteo stopped.
Vincent said, “Get me everything on St. Jude’s board, finance office, endowment managers, and Professor Harlan.”
Charmian’s brows rose.
“My professor?”
“You said he controls your midterm and your attendance warnings stopped.”
“He’s annoying, not necessarily a criminal.”
“I’ve met criminals who were annoying.”
Matteo nodded toward the door.
“I’ll get it.”
After he left, Vincent pulled the brass key from his pocket.
Charmian looked at it.
“Mrs. Gable gave you that?”
“No.”
He held it out.
“She gave it to you.”
Charmian took the key.
“Then why did you have it?”
“Because you were supposedly under arrest.”
She glared.
Vincent’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly.
“Tomorrow morning, if we can secure the route, we go to the bank.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“You trust me now?”
Vincent looked at her bruised face, the bandages on her hands, and the furious intelligence in her eyes.
“I trusted you before I searched the room.”
Her expression hardened again.
“Then next time, act like it.”
Vincent watched her walk away.
May you like
He had been threatened by federal agents, rival bosses, assassins, politicians, and his own father.
For reasons he did not fully understand, those six words bothered him more than any of them.
