Chapter 6 - LOCKER 417
“Then you won’t mind if I check.”
Mitchell moved between me and the hallway.
Not violently.
That would have been easier.
Instead he looked at me with the same exhausted patience he had used throughout our marriage.
“You’re upset.”
I almost smiled.
There it was.
My old cage, reduced to two words.
“You’re upset.”
As though emotions invalidated facts.
As though pain made me unreliable.
As though the calmest person automatically owned the truth.
“No,” I said. “I’m finally paying attention.”
His expression tightened.
“You think Reed is going to save you?”
“I’m not asking him to.”
“He doesn’t do anything without wanting something.”
“Neither do you.”
“At least you know me.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“I thought I did.”
That landed.
He stepped aside.
Maybe he understood physically stopping me would prove every accusation I had made.
Maybe some part of him still wanted to believe he wasn’t that man.
I passed him.
At the front door, he said my name quietly.
I stopped without turning.
“If you open that locker, you cannot unknow what’s inside.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“That’s the first reason you’ve given me to open it.”
Nikolai’s car was still across the street.
He hadn’t followed me inside.
He hadn’t sent someone after me.
He had simply waited.
When I climbed into the back seat, he studied my face.
“You saw him.”
“Yes.”
“He told you I’m lying.”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you the letter?”
I stared at him.
“You knew about it.”
“I knew one existed.”
“It says my father told my mother not to trust a Reed.”
“I know.”
“And you forgot to mention that?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was hoping we’d find the rest.”
“The rest?”
“The letter is incomplete.”
Mitchell’s certainty suddenly echoed in my head.
He had never shown me the second page.
I pulled out the claim ticket.
Nikolai’s gaze dropped to it.
“Where did you find that?”
“Under my mother’s bracelet.”
His face changed.
“Mitchell had her bracelet?”
“For years.”
Something dark entered Nikolai’s eyes.
Not theatrical rage.
Something quieter.
More dangerous.
“He watched me search for it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
I touched the sapphires.
Not because I needed strength anymore.
Because I finally understood how much of my grief had been manipulated.
“Locker 417.”
Nikolai looked at the ticket.
“The old lockers were removed years ago.”
My heart dropped.
“But.”
I waited.
“Unclaimed contents went to long-term storage before auction. Some were held if fees were prepaid.”
“Can we find out?”
“Yes.”
Two hours later, after showing identification and the original claim ticket to an overnight storage supervisor who had seen stranger things in Manhattan, I was standing before a gray metal cage in a rail facility on the west side.
A plastic bin marked 417 sat inside.
My hands shook as I opened it.
There were no guns.
No diamonds.
No dramatic stacks of money.
Just papers.
A black ledger.
A small velvet rosary case.
And an envelope with my name on it.
I reached for the letter first.
Nikolai stopped several feet away.
“Aren’t you going to hover?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s yours.”
Something inside me softened.
I hated that timing.
I opened the envelope.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, then I failed to explain things before they became your burden.
My eyes blurred.
I sat on the concrete floor.
Dad’s voice seemed to rise from every line.
He wrote about Pier Nine.
About discovering money moving through companies that didn’t exist.
About trusting Nikolai’s father, then doubting him.
About Mitchell’s father insisting the irregularities were harmless accounting.
Then came the sentence that made my heart stop.
The first page of my letter to your mother said not to trust a Reed.
The second page said this:
Do not trust a Reed merely because he carries the name. Judge Nikolai by what he does when no one is forcing him.
I looked up.
Nikolai had turned away.
Giving me privacy even from his reaction.
I kept reading.
He has done things I would never approve of. His father has too. But Nikolai refused to use you as leverage when others suggested it. For that alone, I owe him more than I like admitting.
I swallowed a sob.
Mitchell had shown me the truth.
Just not all of it.
That somehow felt worse than a lie.
I continued.
Mitchell is different. I believe he loves you, but he believes love grants ownership. That frightens me more than hatred would.
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
My father had seen it.
Before I had.
Before I had spent years making excuses.
The letter ended with instructions.
Do not sign anything involving Harbor Nine until you have the original ledger and share certificate.
If you decide to sell, sell.
If you decide to keep it, keep it.
It is yours.
Not mine.
Not Mitchell’s.
Not Nikolai’s.
Yours.
For the first time that night, I cried without shame.
When I finished, Nikolai silently offered me a handkerchief.
A real cloth one.
I laughed through my tears.
“Do mafia bosses actually carry these?”
“My grandmother raised me.”
“That explains absolutely nothing.”
“It explains the handkerchief.”
I took it.
Then we opened the ledger.
Pages of transactions stretched back decades.
Some carried Mercer company names.
Some Reed.
Some unfamiliar.
Nikolai crouched beside me, reading.
His face grew harder with every page.
“What?”
“These transfers.”
He pointed.
“They continued after Pier Nine supposedly suspended operations.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
I followed the dates.
Then I saw my own name.
My blood turned cold.
AUTHORIZATION: BENEFICIARY CONSENT.
My signature appeared beside it.
“That isn’t mine.”
Nikolai looked at me.
“Are you sure?”
“I know my signature.”
There were twelve more.
Transfers totaling more than thirty million dollars.
All supposedly authorized by me.
One was dated the day I sat beside my dying mother in Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Another while Mitchell and I were in Paris.
A third after I filed for divorce.
“He forged these.”
“Yes.”
I kept turning pages.
Then something changed.
The destination on several transfers was REED STRATEGIC HOLDINGS.
I looked slowly at Nikolai.
His face was unreadable.
“You received the money.”
He said nothing.
“Nikolai.”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
He looked at the ledger.
“Eight million.”
I stood.
“You let me sit here reading about Mitchell stealing from me while your company took eight million dollars?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
I laughed sharply.
“They all say that.”
“I can show you where it went.”
“Another explanation?”
“Evidence.”
I grabbed the ledger.
Then a loose paper slipped from the rosary case.
It was a transfer order.
Eight million dollars.
My father’s signature.
Nikolai’s signature.
And beneath both, a handwritten instruction:
MOVE FUNDS BEFORE MITCHELL FINDS THE SECOND LEDGER.
I stared at the words.
Then at Nikolai.
“There’s another ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
May you like
His gaze shifted toward my father’s pocket watch.
“Inside the one place Mitchell has been trying to reach for five years.”
