Chapter 9 - The Devil's Bargain
The rushing water of the shower echoed loudly in the confined space, masking the sound of Sadie’s shattered breathing.
She slid down the cold tile wall, burying her face in her hands.
Everything Liam had told her in those final, bloody moments had been a desperate manipulation.
He had turned an innocent single mother into a sleeper agent for his own posthumous revenge.
Ronan crouched beside her, his harsh demeanor softening just a fraction.
He admitted that his brother had always been a ruthless tactician who viewed people as disposable chess pieces.
But Ronan needed her now more than ever.
The ledger didn't just contain the names of corrupt politicians.
It contained the true identity of the Falcon, the assassin who was currently hunting them all.
Sadie looked up, her eyes blazing with a sudden, fierce determination.
She didn't care about the Cains, the Volkovs, or the assassins.
She only cared about getting her daughter back from the warehouse.
She grabbed Ronan’s lapels and proposed a devil's bargain.
She would help him root out the traitor in his house and find the ledger, but he had to use his entire army to crush the Volkovs and save Poppy.
Ronan stared into her fierce, tear-streaked face and slowly nodded.
They walked out of the bathroom as allies forged in blood and desperation.
Sadie closed her eyes, trying to think like the desperate staff members she had met that morning.
She remembered Wesley, the young footman who had sneered at her shoes.
He had been holding his phone at an odd angle in the kitchen, pretending to text but actually recording her.
Sadie told Ronan to pull the security footage of the East Wing from the exact moment Eleanor had collapsed.
They rushed back to the bunker and watched the grainy black-and-white screens.
The footage showed Wesley slipping into Eleanor’s room ten minutes before Sadie arrived with the tea tray.
He had rearranged the medicine, deliberately triggering the old woman’s heart attack to create a distraction.
While the maids panicked, the footage showed Wesley reaching beneath the window trim and pulling out a small, leather-bound book.
He had hidden it inside the hollow tubular frame of the wheelchair he had brought in for the matriarch.
Ronan’s guards immediately tore the wheelchair apart.
A hollow metallic clatter echoed through the room as a heavy, black leather book fell onto the floor.
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They had found the ledger.
But Wesley was nowhere to be found.
