Chapter 5 - The Ledger in the Piano StringsBy three in the morning, the rain had turned into a driving sleet that battered the windows of Blackwood Tower.
The twenty-two dinner guests had been moved into the lower lounge under the watchful guard of Damian’s men, while the master study on the fifty-first floor was converted into a war room.
I sat in a high-backed leather chair beside the fireplace, wrapped in a cashmere blanket that Damian had personally draped over my shoulders. On the mahogany table beside me sat a fresh mug of black tea and a small plate of the lemon tarts I had baked earlier that evening.
Damian stood before the grand Steinway piano near the arched window. He didn't play. He ran his scarred fingers along the polished black wood, staring into the dark expanse of Manhattan.
Gabriel walked in through the double doors, carrying a heavy metal lockbox covered in rust and cellar dust.
“The box from Peekskill, boss,” Gabriel said, setting it on the desk.
Damian pulled a slender steel pick from his pocket. With three practiced clicks, the brass tumblers gave way, and the heavy lid swung open.
Inside lay three micro-cassettes, a stack of certified carbon medical intake forms from the Westchester clinic, and a black leather notebook filled with handwritten ledger entries.
Damian picked up the top medical form. His eyes scanned the yellowed paper, his pupils dilating until they looked like black ink.
“Julian Thorne’s signature is on the witness line,” Damian murmured, his voice deadly and low. “He signed off as Alyssa’s legal guardian using a forged power of attorney dated six hours before the crash.”
He flipped through the black notebook.
“And here are the offshore wire transfers. Forty million dollars moved from Thorne Maritime Holdings into an account in the Cayman Islands registered to Dr. Julian Mercer’s medical practice.”
He closed the ledger with a heavy thud that sounded like a coffin lid slamming shut.
He turned toward me.
“Maya.”
“Yes, Mr. Blackwood?”
“You risked your life coming here tonight,” he said, stepping toward me with deliberate, unhurried strides. “You could have fled to Canada. You could have lived a quiet life, safe from the Thorne family’s reach.”
I looked up into his gray eyes, seeing the raw, unhealed grief beneath his terrifying facade.
“Alyssa made me promise, sir,” I said quietly. “She told me that her brother was a man of honor who protected the people under his care. She said you would tear down the city to find her killers. I couldn't let her memory be buried under a fraudulent alliance with the very people who took her life.”
Damian crouched in front of my chair until his face was level with mine. The warmth radiating from his broad frame was striking against the cold dampness of the room.
“My sister chose her allies well,” he whispered, his thumb gently brushing across my burn-scarred knuckles. “From this night forward, Miss Lin, you will never hide in a commercial kitchen again. You are under the personal protection of the Blackwood family.”
Before I could answer, the double doors flew open again.
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Two of Gabriel’s enforcers dragged a man into the room. He was dressed in an expensive cashmere overcoat, his silver hair disheveled, his face bruised from an unceremonious extraction.
Julian Thorne. Seraphina’s older brother and the heir to the Thorne banking dynasty.
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