Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Door
Damian spent the entire night interrogating his own organization without allowing anyone to realize he was doing it.
He did not arrest Bruno.
He did not accuse Leo.
He did not even mention the missing page.
Instead, he ordered silence.
The headquarters went dark.
Phones were collected.
Vehicles were frozen in place.
Anyone attempting to leave was stopped.
Damian sat alone in his office at three in the morning, Khloe's warning replaying in his mind.
Don't trust the man standing beside you.
The sentence could mean anyone.
His lawyer.
His driver.
Leo.
Bruno.
Even Damian himself.
But Khloe was too precise to leave a meaningless warning.
She had known something.
Something had frightened her enough to risk sending him a message.
At 4:17 a.m., Damian received another call.
Unknown number.
He answered.
"Damian."
The voice was male.
Older.
Calm.
"You want your secretary?"
"Yes."
"You want her alive?"
"Very much."
A quiet laugh.
"Then stop pretending Declan Walsh took her."
Damian's eyes narrowed.
"Where is she?"
"Somewhere your men will never search."
"Tell me."
"Bring the missing page from the ledger."
"I don't have it."
"You do."
"You're wrong."
Another pause.
"No, Damian. I'm testing you."
Damian leaned back.
"Who are you?"
The stranger ignored the question.
"Basement. St. Agnes Hotel. Tomorrow night. Midnight."
The call ended.
Damian stared at the phone.
St. Agnes Hotel had been abandoned for almost ten years.
The building sat in Lower Manhattan between a construction site and an empty warehouse.
No one should have been using it.
"Leo."
The door opened.
Leo entered.
"You called?"
"St. Agnes Hotel."
Leo's expression changed.
"That's in your father's old territory."
"Exactly."
Leo crossed the room.
"You think they took her there?"
"I think someone wants me to think they did."
Leo studied him.
"What about Walsh?"
"He didn't take her."
"Why?"
"Because whoever did this knows too much about the ledger."
Leo looked unsettled.
"Then we have a problem."
"We have several."
Damian slid a photograph across the desk.
It showed Bruno entering an underground garage two nights earlier.
Leo's face hardened.
"Where did you get this?"
"Security camera from a Russo-owned building."
"Wasn't the feed wiped?"
"Partially."
Leo studied the timestamp.
Bruno had met someone.
The stranger's face was hidden beneath a cap.
"Who is that?"
"I don't know."
"Do you trust Bruno?"
Damian stared at the photo.
"I trusted him."
That answer was enough.
By morning, Damian had discovered more.
The man Bruno met had made three other visits to Russo properties.
Each time, somebody had accessed records.
Financial records.
Transportation records.
Security records.
Khloe had spent weeks auditing internal accounts before disappearing.
Damian remembered her behavior.
The late evenings.
The extra coffee.
The way she sometimes stopped typing and looked through the window.
He had assumed she was tired.
He had been wrong.
At six that evening, Damian entered the underground parking garage and found Bruno waiting.
"You asked for me, boss?"
Damian walked toward him.
"Where were you Tuesday night?"
Bruno hesitated.
"Home."
Damian nodded.
"Did you go anywhere else?"
"No."
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
Damian looked directly into his eyes.
"Then why did you lie?"
Bruno froze.
Leo stepped from behind a pillar.
Bruno reached for his weapon.
Three laser dots appeared instantly on his chest.
He stopped.
Damian's voice remained calm.
"You met someone."
Bruno swallowed.
"I was trying to protect you."
"From whom?"
Bruno looked away.
"Khloe."
Damian's blood ran cold.
"What do you know?"
Bruno slowly raised his empty hands.
"She came to me two weeks ago."
"Why?"
"She suspected someone was inside the organization."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Damian's jaw tightened.
"Try again."
Bruno looked at him.
"She said your father left something behind."
Silence.
Damian stepped closer.
"What?"
"A second ledger."
Leo exchanged a glance with him.
Bruno continued.
"Your father kept a private account of everyone who had access to the Russo empire."
Damian's face changed.
"My father died seven years ago."
"Exactly."
"Why didn't Khloe tell me?"
"She tried."
Damian stared at him.
"When?"
"Three days before she disappeared."
Bruno reached inside his coat and pulled out a small envelope.
He handed it to Damian.
Inside was a photograph.
Damian recognized the woman immediately.
Khloe.
Standing beside Damian's dead father.
The photograph had been taken eleven years earlier.
Impossible.
Khloe would have been seventeen.
Damian turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were eight words.
She has known the Russos longer than you think.
Damian looked at Bruno.
"What the hell is this?"
"I don't know."
Then the lights went out.
A gunshot exploded.
Bruno fell.
Leo fired toward the darkness.
Damian dropped behind a concrete pillar.
More shots.
Then silence.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Bruno was wounded in the shoulder.
Leo looked across the garage.
A shadow disappeared through a service corridor.
Damian ran after it.
He entered the corridor and saw a metal door swinging shut.
Beyond it was an underground passage leading beneath the city.
He followed.
But the person was already gone.
On the floor was something familiar.
Khloe's Patek Philippe watch.
The one Damian had given her.
Its crystal was cracked.
The back was smeared with blood.
Damian picked it up.
Then he noticed the engraving.
He had never seen it before.
Three words.
LOOK UNDERNEATH.
That night, Damian took apart every floorboard in his office.
Behind the hidden compartment containing the Black Ledger was another sealed box.
Inside was a photograph.
A birth certificate.
And a letter from his father.
Damian read the first line.
My son, the greatest danger to our family was never our enemies.
It was the person I trusted enough to marry.
Damian's heart began to pound.
His mother had died when he was sixteen.
His father had always told him she was killed in an accident.
The letter said otherwise.
She had been murdered.
And Khloe's mother had witnessed it.
Damian turned the page.
Khloe's mother.
Evelyn Hayes.
His father's former accountant.
The woman who had disappeared eleven years earlier.
Damian whispered one word.
"No."
The phone rang.
He answered.
This time, he heard Khloe.
Her voice was barely audible.
"Damian..."
He stood so quickly the chair fell behind him.
"Khloe!"
"Don't come alone."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know."
"What can you see?"
She started crying.
"Concrete walls."
Damian closed his eyes.
"Listen to me. I'm coming."
"No."
Her whisper became urgent.
"Damian, there is someone here."
"Who?"
A man's voice came from somewhere beside her.
"He already knows."
The call ended.
Damian looked down at the letter.
May you like
His father's final words were written beneath the signature.
Trust no one carrying the Russo name.
