THE SYNDICATE’S LEDGER

The thunder outside masked the click of Stefan’s gun, but the sound echoed in my bones.

I shoved Toby behind me, shielding his body with mine.

Viktor didn’t flinch. He just looked at his right-hand man, the man who had stood beside him in the restaurant thirty minutes ago.

“You,” Viktor said. It wasn’t a question.

“The Russian buyers offered me a seat at the table,” Stefan said, his voice completely void of emotion. “All I had to do was delay the courier, alter the document, and secure Ilona’s proxy seal.”

“You hired the lawyer, Peter Horvath, to change the Hungarian phrasing.”

“Peter was greedy. But he did his job. The document now transfers all of your physical assets to the proxy. And once I have that key, the proxy signs everything over to me.”

Stefan stepped closer, the gun unwavering.

“Hand over the key, Mara.”

I gripped the cold iron attached to the silver bracelet. My grandmother’s secret.

“If I give this to you, you’ll kill us anyway,” I said, my voice shaking.

“If you don’t, I shoot the boy first.”

Viktor moved.

He didn’t lunge at Stefan. He lunged at the lamp on the side table, sweeping his arm violently. The heavy ceramic base smashed into the wall switch, plunging the apartment into total darkness.

A gunshot deafened me.

Wood splintered right where my head had been a second earlier.

A heavy hand grabbed my arm, yanking me toward the fire escape window. It was Viktor.

“Move!” he roared over the thunder.

I pushed Toby through the window into the driving rain. We scrambled onto the rusted metal landing. Viktor vaulted out right behind us, slamming the window shut just as another bullet shattered the glass.

“Down the stairs, don’t look back!” Viktor yelled.

We blindly navigated the slippery metal stairs. Toby was crying, but he kept moving. We hit the dark alley behind the building.

“We can’t outrun a bullet,” I gasped, clutching Toby.

“We aren’t going to,” Viktor said, pulling out his phone. He didn’t call the police. He pressed a single button and held it to his ear.

“Burn the Brooklyn port,” Viktor said calmly. “Now.”

He hung up.

Ten seconds later, the sky above the East River lit up with a massive, catastrophic fireball. The ground beneath our feet trembled. Sirens erupted across the city almost instantly.

“Your own port?” I breathed.

“It’s a distraction. Stefan’s men will have to respond to the fire to save the cargo. We have a window.”

Viktor grabbed my hand, leading us down a narrow side street toward a subway entrance.

We bypassed the turnstiles and boarded a waiting Q train just as the doors were closing. The car was mostly empty.

We collapsed into the hard plastic seats. Toby buried his face in my chest, shaking violently.

I looked at Viktor. The sleeve of his expensive suit was torn, and dark blood was pooling near his shoulder.

“You’re shot,” I panicked.

“It’s a graze.” Viktor ripped the fabric of his sleeve to inspect the wound. It was deep, but not fatal.

He looked at Toby, whose eyes were fixed on the blood.

Viktor reached onto his wrist and unclasped his heavy silver watch. He handed it to my son.

“Look at the second hand, Toby,” Viktor instructed, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Count how long it takes to make a full circle. Focus only on the watch.”

Toby sniffled, taking the heavy watch. He stared at the dial, his breathing slowly steadying.

I looked at Viktor, stunned by his sudden empathy.

“Why did you save us?” I whispered. “You could have given Stefan the key and walked away.”

“Because Stefan doesn’t understand what that key opens,” Viktor replied, leaning his head back against the window. “He thinks it’s a bank vault.”

“What is it?”

“It opens a ledger box kept at a private security firm in Manhattan. A ledger that proves every asset my family claims to own was stolen from your grandmother’s people. If Stefan gets it, he takes the empire. If I get it, I can destroy him.”

I looked down at the key in my hand.

“And what happens to me?” I asked. “Because five days from now, I’m getting evicted. My mother’s medical bills are drowning me. I don’t care about syndicates or empires. I just want my son to be safe.”

Viktor turned his gray eyes toward me.

“If we survive tonight, Mara, you will never pay another bill for the rest of your life.”

The train screeched to a halt at a deserted station. The doors opened.

We stepped out onto the concrete platform.

But we weren’t alone.

Standing beneath the flickering fluorescent lights was a man in a soaking wet trench coat. He was bleeding from a gunshot wound to his stomach, holding one hand against his side.

When he looked up, I recognized him from the restaurant.

It was Daniel. My manager.

He didn’t have a gun. He held up his hands.

“Mara,” Daniel coughed, spitting blood onto the platform. “I didn’t alter the document for Stefan.”

Viktor pushed me behind him. “Then who do you work for, Daniel?”

Daniel looked at me with tears in his eyes.

“I work for the man who paid your mother’s medical bills before she died, Mara. The man who owns the hospital.”