Chapter 6 - The Dead Man's Ghost
The ride back up the driveway was a blur of flashing lights and shouting guards.
Ronan dragged Sadie straight into the estate's sprawling underground security bunker.
Monitors covered the walls, displaying every angle of Ashport’s traffic cameras.
Ronan’s technical team was already tracking the Volkov SUV, mapping its route toward the industrial district.
He pushed Sadie into a steel chair and slammed both hands onto the table in front of her.
He demanded the absolute truth about his brother Liam.
Sadie sobbed, the dam finally breaking after four years of agonizing silence.
She confessed that Liam had stumbled into her alleyway bleeding from three gunshot wounds.
She told Ronan how Liam had grabbed her arm, taught her the code, and made her memorize the location of the falcon tattoo on his own chest.
Ronan’s eyes darkened with a mixture of grief and sheer rage.
Sadie admitted that the Volkovs believed she had the master ledger, the book Liam had used to track the cartel's betrayals.
Ronan paced the room like a caged panther.
He turned to her and stated a terrifying fact.
The Volkovs wouldn't have known to grab Poppy unless someone inside Raven Hill had tipped them off.
There was a mole in his house.
Someone on the staff had seen Sadie’s tattoo in the matriarch’s room and made a phone call.
Sadie’s mind raced back to the morning.
June Callaway, Wesley the footman, and the two whispering maids had all been in the East Wing.
Ronan handed Sadie a small, discreet earpiece.
He ordered her to go back upstairs and act like a terrified, broken maid.
She was to search Eleanor’s room for the ledger while Ronan’s men prepared a strike team to hit the Volkov warehouse.
Sadie took the earpiece, her hands trembling as she placed it in her ear.
She hurried back up to the matriarch’s suite, locking the heavy oak door behind her.
Eleanor was waiting, her face etched with deep sorrow.
Sadie signed that the Volkovs had taken Poppy.
Eleanor closed her eyes, tears spilling down her wrinkled cheeks.
She pointed a shaking finger toward the baseboards beneath the large bay window.
Sadie dropped to the floor, prying at the wooden trim with her fingernails until it snapped loose.
Behind the wood was a hollow cavity.
Sadie reached inside, but her fingers brushed against empty air.
The ledger was gone.
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Before she could process the shock, the lock on the bedroom door clicked open.
June Callaway stepped into the room, holding a silenced pistol aimed directly at Sadie’s head.
