Chapter 3 - THE TORN MANIFEST
I stared at the silver locket dangling from Dominic’s hand.
The intricate floral engraving on the front was unmistakable. My mother had worn it every day until she died. Then I wore it, hiding it beneath high-collared shirts because Rebecca hated the sight of it.
I looked at my father. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was staring at the tablecloth, his chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths.
“You stole it,” I whispered, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. “You stole my mother’s locket from my bedroom.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Claire,” Rebecca snapped, though her voice wavered. “It was probably just misplaced. This man is clearly a criminal trying to extort us.”
Dominic didn’t even glance at her. He kept his eyes on my father.
“The crate contained twelve million dollars in stolen bearer bonds,” Dominic said calmly. “The FBI will be raiding Whitmore Freight’s main warehouse in exactly four hours. When they check the digital logs, they will find Claire’s authorization code on the container.”
Madison let out a sharp cry, covering her mouth. Emily began to cry.
My father finally looked up, sheer terror in his eyes. “Mr. Vale. Please. We can work this out. I can give you equity. I can give you the company.”
“I don’t want your company,” Dominic said. “I want my bonds.”
He looked down at me. “Walk out that door, Claire. Don’t look back.”
I didn’t hesitate. I turned my back on my family and walked out of the private dining room.
The cold night air hit me as I stepped onto the pavement outside the restaurant. My mind was racing. Twelve million dollars. The FBI. My authorization code.
My father hadn’t just ignored me. He had weaponized my dedication. He gave me control of the logistics system so he could use my digital footprint as a shield. If the smuggling ring was ever caught, the paper trail led to the windowless office in the basement.
Dominic walked out behind me. A sleek, black armored SUV pulled up to the curb immediately.
“Get in,” he said, opening the door.
“Where are we going?”
“To your office.” Dominic’s gray eyes were intensely focused. “Before Charles sends someone to destroy the physical records.”
I slid into the leather seat. Dominic climbed in beside me, and the SUV sped into the Baltimore traffic.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked, staring at his profile in the passing streetlights. “If you think I’m innocent, why not just go to the police?”
“Because the men Charles is smuggling for don’t care about the police,” Dominic said, his jaw tightening. “They are a syndicate operating out of New York. Charles owed them money. He offered your company’s shipping lanes to pay off his debt. But he got greedy. He stole my bonds and tried to smuggle them out using the syndicate’s route to cover his tracks.”
My stomach churned. “So the syndicate thinks you’re interfering, and you think they stole your money.”
“Exactly,” Dominic said. “Charles played us both. But he was sloppy.”
We pulled up to the Whitmore Freight headquarters. The building was dark, the massive warehouse stretching out behind the office complex.
I used my keycard to let us through the side entrance. We bypassed the lavish executive suites on the top floor and went straight down to the basement.
My office was exactly as I had left it. Dingy. Cramped. Stacked high with manila folders.
“What are we looking for?” Dominic asked, his men taking positions by the door.
“If Charles forged my authorization, he couldn’t do it from his own computer,” I said, moving to my desk and booting up the ancient desktop. “The system logs IP addresses. He would have to physically use my terminal. But he’s arrogant. He probably printed the routing manifest to give to the truck drivers, then deleted the digital file.”
“Does your printer keep an internal memory?”
“No,” I said. “But my trash can does.”
I dropped to my knees and pulled the small metal trash bin from under my desk. It was empty. The cleaning crew had already come through.
Panic flared in my chest.
I looked frantically around the small room.
Then my eyes landed on the heavy, antique oak desk. It had belonged to my mother. It was the only piece of her furniture Charles hadn’t thrown away, probably because it was too heavy to move.
When I was a little girl, I used to sit under this desk while my mother worked. I knew every scratch on the wood.
I crawled under the desk and looked up at the underside of the middle drawer.
There was a tiny gap between the drawer and the frame.
I reached my hand in and felt a crumpled piece of paper wedged into the gap.
I pulled it out.
It was a torn piece of a shipping manifest. The top half was missing, but the bottom half was intact.
It had my authorization code printed on it. And next to it, written in blue ink, was a signature.
My name. But it wasn’t my handwriting.
It was Charles’s distinct, looping scrawl.
“I found it,” I said, crawling out and handing the paper to Dominic. “He must have printed it, realized he signed it by habit instead of typing it, tore it up, and jammed the scrap under the desk before reprinting a clean one.”
Dominic examined the signature. “This proves forgery.”
Suddenly, the heavy metal door at the top of the basement stairs slammed shut.
The sound echoed through the empty hallway.
Dominic’s men instantly drew their weapons, stepping into the corridor.
“Check the perimeter,” Dominic ordered, his voice dangerously low.
I heard footsteps running across the warehouse floor above us. Heavy boots. Too many to count.
“That’s not Charles,” Dominic said, stepping in front of me, shielding my body with his. “Charles doesn’t have the nerve to come here himself.”
“Then who is it?” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Before he could answer, the smell hit me.
Thick. Acrid.
Smoke.
The fire alarm began to shriek, a deafening wail that shook the basement walls.
They weren’t here to find the paperwork. They were here to burn the building to the ground with us inside.
Dominic grabbed my arm. “We have to move. Now.”
We ran toward the stairwell, but as we reached the bottom step, a wave of intense heat blasted down from the ground floor. Orange flames were already licking the top of the stairs, feeding on accelerant.
We were trapped underground.
Dominic didn’t panic. He pulled a heavy tactical flashlight from his coat and turned to me.
“You know this building better than anyone,” he said, his eyes burning into mine with absolute trust. “Get us out.”
I looked at the flames. Then I looked at the old blueprints I had memorized years ago to optimize the warehouse flow.
“The old freight elevator,” I said, coughing as smoke began to fill the basement. “It hasn’t been used in ten years. But the shaft connects to the roof.”
“Show me.”
We bolted down the corridor, the smoke growing thicker by the second. I pulled a rusted metal grate away from the wall, revealing the dark, echoing shaft of the old elevator.
But as Dominic aimed his flashlight into the shaft, the beam illuminated something sitting at the bottom of the pit.
It was a wooden crate.
And stenciled on the side, in bright red letters, was the name of the New York syndicate.
“Dominic,” I gasped, pointing down.
May you like
Dominic stared at the crate, his jaw locking.
“Charles didn’t ship the bonds out of Baltimore,” Dominic realized, the fury in his voice chilling the sweltering air. “He hid them right under your feet.”
