Chapter 5 - The Secret Ledger
The rain was pouring heavily by the time we arrived at the deserted shipping yard near Dock 42. High metal cranes loomed over rows of rusted shipping containers like giant metal beasts in the gray gloom.
Luca and I walked into the main office building of the logistics facility, accompanied by four armed guards. The building was dark, smelled of engine oil and damp concrete, and was lit only by the emergency lights reflecting off the wet floor.
“Marco kept a private safe in the floor beneath his desk,” Luca explained as we walked down the narrow corridor. “If there’s any record of where Danny was taken, it’s in that safe.”
We entered Marco’s office. It was messy—papers scattered across the desk, empty coffee cups, an unmade cot in the corner. Luca walked straight behind the heavy metal desk, kicked aside a worn Persian rug, and revealed a heavy steel floor safe with a digital keypad.
“Do you know the combination?” I asked, standing near the door, keeping my injured arm close to my body.
“Marco used his military enlistment date for everything,” Luca said, punching in a six-digit code.
The red light on the keypad blinked once, then turned green with a soft metallic click. Luca pulled the heavy door open.
Inside lay stacks of untraceable cash, three unregistered handguns, and a thick, leather-bound notebook with gold trim. Luca pulled the notebook out and flipped it open on the desk.
I stepped closer, my heart hammering in my chest as I looked over his shoulder.
Page after page was filled with handwritten names, dates, coordinates, and payment amounts. It was Marco’s shadow ledger—the true record of every illegal transaction he had conducted behind Luca’s back for the past five years.
Luca flipped toward the entries from three months ago. His finger stopped on a entry dated July 14th.
Danny Dawson. Dock 42 incident. Uncooperative. Disposed of at Sector 7, Pine Barrens.
Tears filled my eyes again, blinding my vision. Sector 7. The Pine Barrens—a dense, isolated forest area forty miles south of the city. He wasn't in the lake. He was buried in the woods, stripped of his identity, left in an unmarked grave like garbage.
“We found him, Claire,” Luca whispered, his voice thick with emotion as he looked at me. “We know where he is now. I’ll send a team out there tonight. We will bring his remains home, give him a proper Christian burial, and clear his name publicly.”
“Thank you,” I sobbed, lowering my head. “Thank you, Mr. Moretti.”
Before Luca could answer, a loud metallic bang echoed through the quiet office building, followed by the sharp crack of gunshot fire from the hallway outside.
Luca’s hand instantly flew to the holster beneath his suit jacket. “Get down!” he commanded, shoving me behind the reinforced steel desk just as the office door was kicked open with violent force.
Three men wearing dark tactical gear and ski masks burst into the room, automatic weapons raised.
Luca reacted with blinding speed. He pulled his weapon and fired three rapid shots. The lead gunman collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud, but the other two returned fire, spraying bullets across the room, shattering the glass windows and tearing wooden splinters from the desk above my head.
“Marco’s loyalists!” Luca growled, crouching behind the desk beside me, ejecting an empty magazine and slapping a fresh one into his pistol with practiced ease. “He must have had a backup security trigger set if he didn't check in!”
“Luca, there are more coming!” I gasped, looking through the cracked glass window into the hallway. Four more armed men were advancing down the corridor.
Luca looked down at me, his dark eyes fierce and determined. “Stay behind me, Claire. I swore to protect you, and I intend to keep that promise.”
He stood up, firing over the edge of the desk with deadly precision, taking down two more attackers as they tried to breach the doorway. But a bullet grazed Luca’s upper left arm, tearing through his dark suit jacket, causing him to grunt in pain and stumble back against the wall.
“Luca!” I screamed, reaching up with my good hand to catch him.
Blood was staining his crisp white shirt, but his grip on his gun never wavered. “It’s just a graze,” he grunted, his jaw tight with pain. “We need to move to the rear exit before they surround the building!”
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I grabbed the leather-bound ledger from the desk, clutching it tightly against my chest. “I have the proof! Let’s go!”
Holding each other up—Luca bleeding from his arm, me with my arm in a sling—we made our way through the smoke-filled hallway toward the emergency rear staircase, fighting our way out of the trap Marco had set from behind bars.
