Chapter 6 - The Ledger
The Russian boss hung up, leaving a suffocating silence in the study.
Larkin looked at me, the mask of the calm, collected leader finally beginning to fracture.
He told me the five million dollars was the exact payment required for tonight's weapons shipment.
If the money was gone, the Russians would view it as an act of war.
He pulled a sleek, encrypted laptop from a hidden wall safe and placed it on the desk.
He ordered me to track the missing funds immediately, knowing I was the only person capable of navigating the complex network of shell companies.
I kicked off my stilettos and ran to the desk, my fingers flying across the keyboard.
The spreadsheets and banking codes were my true domain, a world where I held absolute power.
I bypassed three layers of security firewalls in under a minute, my mind completely focused on the digital trail.
The money had been systematically siphoned out of the primary account in small increments over the last hour.
I traced the IP address of the routing destination, pulling up the final holding account.
I stared at the screen, my blood running completely cold.
I quietly told Larkin that the money had not been seized by the FBI or stolen by a rival family.
It had been wired directly into a private Cayman Islands account registered under a fake corporate entity.
Larkin leaned over my shoulder, his proximity making it hard for me to breathe.
He demanded to know who owned the holding company.
I hit the final decryption key, revealing the name of the primary shareholder.
The name glowing brightly on the screen was Thomas Steves.
Larkin went completely rigid, the reality of his own cousin's betrayal sinking in.
Thomas had planned to steal the money, frame me as a federal informant, and let the Russians murder Larkin in retaliation.
Suddenly, the glass window of the study shattered violently into a thousand pieces.
A tear gas canister rolled across the floor, spewing thick, blinding white smoke into the room.
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Through the haze, the heavy doors were kicked open.
Thomas walked back into the room wearing a gas mask, flanked by five heavily armed mercenaries.
