Chapter 5 - The Ledger
Leo dragged Mave out of the apartment building and shoved her into his waiting armored SUV.
He slammed the gas pedal, tearing away from the curb before the police could arrive.
The silence inside the heavy vehicle was thick and suffocating.
"What did that man say to you?" Leo finally demanded, keeping his eyes on the road.
"He asked for a ledger," Mave answered, wrapping her arms around her shivering body.
"He said my mother stole it from the Russian syndicate."
Leo gripped the leather steering wheel until his knuckles turned bone white.
"Your mother was Evelyn Hayes, wasn't she?" Leo asked quietly.
Mave turned her head sharply to stare at his chiseled profile.
"How do you know her full maiden name?" she asked.
"Because Evelyn Hayes was not a baker," Leo confessed bitterly.
"She was the primary accountant for the Volkov crime family for fifteen years."
Mave felt all the air leave her lungs at once.
The late nights, the sudden moves, the paranoia her mother had always exhibited.
It all suddenly made a terrifying amount of sense.
"She stole their financial records to buy her freedom," Leo explained.
"When they caught her, they beat her so badly it put her in the hospital permanently."
Mave covered her face with her hands as a sob tore from her throat.
The medical debt that had ruined Mave's life was not from a natural illness.
It was from a mafia beating.
"If she stole it, where is it?" Leo asked gently.
Mave lowered her hands and stared out the rain-streaked window.
"Before she died, she gave me a brass key," Mave whispered.
"She sewed it into the lining of my winter coat."
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Leo slammed on the brakes and pulled the SUV into a dark alleyway.
"Where is that coat right now, Mave?"
