Chapter 6 - The Ledger Laid Bare
Ethan pulled me through the private service corridor behind the Gold Coast ballroom, away from the prying eyes of the press.
We entered the hotel manager’s private study, where Marcus Vance was already waiting with two locked steel briefcases.
Ethan locked the heavy oak door behind us and turned to face me.
"Show me the ledger," he said.
I pulled the worn black notebook from my silk clutch and laid it on the antique mahogany desk.
Ethan flipped open the pages, his eyes devouring my father’s precise handwriting.
With every column he scanned, the muscles along his jaw ticked with dangerous, explosive fury.
"Dominic Rossi's signatures are on the maritime manifests," Ethan muttered, his voice dropping into absolute ice.
"Every shipment of industrial machinery Victoria cleared through New York contained ten percent unaccounted cargo weight."
"They were using my construction permits to move untraced foreign bonds into Midwestern banks."
"Julian caught the discrepancies when he checked the concrete foundation orders," I explained.
"The theater basement isn't being widened for acoustic balance, Ethan."
"It’s being widened to install hydraulic hoists connected directly to the old rail spurs beneath the river."
Marcus stepped forward, placing a tablet on the desk beside the ledger.
"Boss, our mechanics just finished the secondary sweep of Julian Avery's sedan."
"The surveillance footage from the parking garage near Lane Tech shows a man in a delivery uniform cutting the lines at four in the afternoon."
"We ran facial recognition through our database."
"It wasn't a professional hitman from New York."
"It was Tommy Hale—Victoria's younger brother."
The air inside the room evaporated into pure static.
Ethan stared at the tablet screen where a grainy still image showed Tommy Hale wiping a blade on a rag.
"Tommy was supposed to be in a rehabilitation center in Vermont," Ethan whispered, his knuckles turning white against the desk.
"Victoria signed him out three weeks ago," Marcus confirmed.
"She put him on the payroll of the Lakefront Theater renovation team as a night security guard."
I looked at my husband, seeing the brutal reality crash through the armor of his entire adult life.
"She didn't have a panic attack in Manhattan, Ethan," I said, my voice steady despite the pain in my chest.
"She orchestrated that crisis to keep you six hundred miles away while Tommy silenced my father."
"She knew you were the only person in Chicago who could have ordered the trauma teams to save Julian’s life."
Ethan stood motionless for a full sixty seconds, staring at the photograph of the man who murdered my father.
When he looked up, the human warmth in his eyes had vanished completely, replaced by the terrifying, ruthless patriarch Chicago feared.
"Marcus," Ethan said, his voice flat, calm, and terrifyingly cold.
"Lock the exits of the ballroom."
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"Cut the cellular towers within a two-block radius of the Drake."
"And bring Victoria Hale to the basement cellar."
