Chapter 12 - PIER 41
“Elias!”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding!”
“Shoulder.”
“That is not the definition of fine!”
Security dragged them behind an armored SUV.
Another shot hit the vehicle.
Damian crouched nearby, pale as death.
“I told you this was a trap!”
Ava ripped fabric from a medical kit.
Elias caught her wrist.
“Pressure here.”
She pressed it against the wound.
He winced.
“Sorry.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Of course you have.”
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
The attackers disappeared between warehouses.
Security found one abandoned vehicle.
No plates.
No driver.
Elias’s chief spoke rapidly into a radio.
“Pier is secure enough to move.”
Ava stared.
“Secure enough?”
“Not remotely reassuring,” Damian muttered.
They entered Warehouse 41 through a side entrance.
The building smelled like oil, wet concrete, and rust.
Office twelve sat on the second floor.
The door was open.
Inside, Robert Langford lay tied to a chair.
Alive.
Victoria ran to him.
“Dad!”
He looked terrible.
Bruised face.
Split lip.
But breathing.
Ava helped cut his restraints.
“Ledger,” Robert whispered.
Elias looked at the wall safe.
Open.
Empty.
“No.”
Robert closed his eyes.
“They took it.”
“Who?”
Robert looked at Graham’s empty place among them.
“Charles Dane.”
Elias froze.
His own board chairman.
Robert coughed.
“Graham wasn’t the top.”
Damian whispered, “I knew it.”
Robert shook his head.
“No, you didn’t.”
He looked at Elias.
“Dane started it eighteen years ago.”
“Why?”
“Control.”
Robert swallowed.
“Your father found out.”
Elias’s face changed.
“My father died eighteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
Silence slammed through the room.
Officially, Elias’s father had died of a heart attack at fifty-three.
Robert looked at him.
“He was preparing to remove Dane from the company.”
Elias said nothing.
Robert continued.
“Your father kept copies. Graham helped Dane find them.”
Elias’s face had gone blank.
Ava recognized the reaction.
Too much pain became numbness.
“Did Graham kill him?” Elias asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Dane?”
“I don’t know.”
Elias turned away.
Then Ava noticed something under the desk.
A black plastic corner.
She bent down.
A small memory card.
“Wait.”
She picked it up.
Robert’s eyes widened.
“That’s it.”
“The ledger?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Security footage.”
Ava looked at him.
“Of what?”
Robert swallowed.
“The person who took the ledger.”
They loaded the card onto a laptop.
The footage appeared.
Timestamp: thirty-seven minutes earlier.
Office twelve.
Robert tied to the chair.
Two armed men.
Then a third person entered.
Ava leaned closer.
Her stomach dropped.
Damian whispered:
“No.”
The woman on the screen wore a long coat.
She walked to the wall safe.
Removed the ledger.
Turned toward the camera.
Victoria Langford.
Everyone slowly looked at Victoria.
But the Victoria standing beside her father was equally horrified.
“That’s not possible.”
Ava stared at the footage again.
Then noticed the timestamp.
“No.”
Elias looked at her.
“What?”
Ava pointed.
“Victoria was at the hotel with us thirty-seven minutes ago.”
Damian frowned.
“So?”
Ava looked at the woman on the screen.
“That isn’t Victoria.”
Robert’s face drained.
He whispered one name.
May you like
“Her mother.”
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