Chapter 6 - A Ledger Written in Red
Roman returned to the mansion with the photograph on his phone and murder in his thoughts.
Sadie was waiting in the library.
She stood when he entered.
“You found something.”
Roman handed her the phone.
Sadie stared.
“That’s your brother?”
“Yes.”
“He’s holding the gun.”
“Yes.”
“So…”
“Yes.”
Sadie sat slowly.
Roman expected sympathy.
Instead she asked:
“What time?”
“Midnight.”
“You’re taking me.”
“No.”
“They asked for me.”
“No.”
“My brother is there.”
“I know.”
“If you go without me, Calvin kills him.”
“Possibly.”
“If I go, he might not.”
“Also possibly.”
Sadie looked furious.
“You treat every human feeling like a math problem.”
Roman leaned on the desk.
“Math problems usually have solutions.”
“People do too.”
“Not always.”
She stared at him.
Roman looked away first.
The ledger lay on the desk.
Sadie opened it.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“The money.”
Roman sat opposite.
They studied the pages.
Transfers moved through shell companies.
Construction firms.
Import businesses.
Nightclubs.
A medical supply company.
Sadie frowned.
“This one repeats.”
Roman looked.
Hartwell Medical Logistics.
Every third page.
Amounts varied.
$210,000.
$185,000.
$330,000.
Roman knew the name vaguely.
“Warehouse supplier.”
Sadie turned another page.
“No.”
“What?”
“Look at the dates.”
He did.
Payments occurred the same days certain women had disappeared.
Roman’s face hardened.
Sadie noticed handwritten marks beside several entries.
Red ink.
Small circles.
“Why red?”
Roman examined them.
“Different writer.”
“Anthony?”
“Maybe.”
Sadie compared pages.
“These aren’t payments.”
Roman frowned.
“What are they?”
“Inventory.”
Silence.
Sadie pointed.
“Look. Age. Height. Hair.”
Roman felt sick.
The ledger was not only money.
It was people.
Red entries represented women.
Some had a letter beside them.
S.
T.
D.
Roman did not want to know.
Sadie flipped faster.
Then stopped.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She pointed.
SM.
Roman stared.
Sadie Miller.
Age 29.
5'5".
Brown.
Beside it:
WITNESS. HOLD UNTIL FRIDAY.
Roman slowly closed the ledger.
Sadie’s breathing became shallow.
“I was in the book.”
“Yes.”
“They planned to take me.”
“Yes.”
“After Ben?”
Roman nodded.
She stood and walked away.
Roman let her.
After a moment she said:
“If you hadn’t found my arm…”
Roman did not answer.
They both knew.
Friday was tomorrow.
She would have disappeared.
Roman said quietly, “I should have seen.”
Sadie turned.
“How?”
“It happened in my house.”
“You employ almost two hundred people.”
“My name frightened you more than the men who hurt you.”
“That wasn’t because of you.”
“Yes, it was.”
Sadie looked at him.
Roman continued.
“I built something based on fear. I told myself rules made it clean.”
He laughed once.
“Turns out fear doesn’t care about rules.”
Sadie returned to the desk.
“You can change what happens next.”
Roman met her eyes.
That sentence stayed.
A knock.
Tomas entered.
“We found Hartwell.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned clinic near the port.”
Roman stood.
“Any activity?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Vehicles every night. Vans. No plates.”
Roman looked at Sadie.
She understood.
“Women.”
Tomas nodded.
“Likely.”
Roman made the decision.
“We hit the clinic before Pier Nine.”
Tomas frowned.
“That warns Calvin.”
“Good.”
“We lose Benjamin.”
“No.”
Roman pointed at the ledger.
“This operation is his leverage. We remove the leverage.”
Sadie asked, “How?”
Roman explained.
“Calvin believes I protect business first.”
“Do you?”
“Once.”
Sadie understood the significance.
Now Benjamin came first.
The women came first.
Roman’s empire second.
Tomas began calling trusted men.
Roman stopped him.
“How many do you trust completely?”
Tomas paused.
“Four.”
“Use four.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It has to be.”
Sadie said, “Five.”
Both men looked at her.
She raised her cast slightly.
“I’m coming.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“No.”
“I know the building.”
“You’ve never been there.”
“I know the red wall. The lamps. Maybe they took me there.”
Roman looked at Tomas.
Tomas shrugged.
“She has a point.”
Roman’s stare could have frozen fire.
Tomas lifted both hands.
“Still your decision.”
Sadie smiled faintly.
Roman hated being outvoted in his own library.
An hour later, they drove toward Hartwell.
Sadie wore plain black clothes borrowed from Clara.
Her cast was concealed beneath a coat.
Roman sat beside her in the rear seat.
“You stay in the car.”
She nodded.
Roman narrowed his eyes.
“That agreement came too easily.”
“I’m injured, not suicidal.”
“Comforting.”
The clinic stood in an industrial zone.
Three floors.
Boarded windows.
One loading dock.
Tomas watched through binoculars.
“Two outside.”
Roman’s men moved.
No gunfire.
Quiet restraint.
Roman looked at Sadie.
“Stay.”
He exited.
Inside, the clinic smelled of bleach.
They found locked rooms.
Mattresses.
Suitcases.
Passports in a metal cabinet.
Roman’s stomach turned.
Seven women were upstairs.
Alive.
Terrified.
One spoke little English.
Another immediately began crying when Roman entered.
Roman removed his weapon and handed it to Tomas.
He stepped back.
“You’re safe.”
The woman did not believe him.
Why should she?
Roman looked like exactly the kind of man who had brought her there.
He called emergency contacts outside his network.
A private victim-assistance organization Elena had once funded.
Irony nearly broke him.
While Tomas searched records, Roman returned outside.
Sadie was not in the car.
Of course.
He found her near the loading dock.
“Sadie.”
She turned.
“I heard something.”
Roman approached.
“What?”
“Knocking.”
They listened.
Three taps.
Pause.
Three taps.
From beneath the dock.
Roman found a steel hatch.
Locked.
He broke it open.
Stairs descended.
Sadie whispered, “Again.”
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Roman went down.
At the bottom was a room.
One chair.
One man.
Anthony.
Tied.
Bleeding.
Barely conscious.
Roman froze.
His brother looked up.
“Roman?”
Roman crossed the room.
“You’re alive.”
Anthony laughed weakly.
“Disappointed?”
Roman cut the ropes.
Sadie appeared at the stairs.
Roman glared.
She ignored him.
Anthony saw her.
His expression changed.
Fear.
Not guilt.
“Sadie Miller.”
Sadie stopped.
“You know me?”
Anthony nodded.
“I tried to warn you.”
Roman stared.
“The recording.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
“I said not to break her arm here because I thought I could get her out later.”
Roman’s anger exploded.
“You watched them break it?”
“I couldn’t stop Calvin.”
“You could have called me.”
“He had my daughter.”
Roman froze.
Anthony had a daughter.
Lucy.
Eleven.
At boarding school in Connecticut.
Roman had assumed she was safe.
Anthony whispered:
“She disappeared three months ago.”
Roman felt the floor tilt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Calvin said he’d send her back piece by piece.”
Sadie covered her mouth.
Roman crouched.
“Where is she?”
Anthony started crying.
“I don’t know.”
Roman had never seen his brother cry.
Not even at Elena’s funeral.
Anthony grabbed Roman’s shirt.
“The picture at Pier Nine was staged. Calvin forced me to hold the gun.”
“Benjamin?”
“Alive.”
“Where?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Moved.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Anthony remembered something.
“The ledger.”
Roman nodded.
“I have it.”
“Red entries?”
“Yes.”
Anthony’s face drained.
“Those aren’t trafficking records.”
Roman looked at Sadie.
“What are they?”
Anthony whispered:
“Targets.”
The clinic lights went out.
Tomas shouted from upstairs.
Then gunfire erupted outside.
Roman pulled Sadie behind the concrete wall.
Anthony stared toward the stairwell.
His face went white.
“Calvin found us.”
A phone began ringing on the dead man’s desk.
Roman answered.
May you like
Calvin laughed.
“Thank you for gathering everyone in one place.”
