Chapter 12 · The Glass Wall

My mouth still tasted like him.

That was strike one. Strike two was the ledger lying open under the green desk lamp, gold-edged pages gleaming like it had something to brag about.

"Decode it yourself," Dominic had told me, his thumb digging into my hip right before he shoved away. "See who's actually lying to you, sweetheart."

Then he slammed the steel door and left me locked in a concrete cellar with a split lip and the only book that could keep Danny alive.

I touched my lip with the back of my hand. Stung like hell. Good. Pain kept me sharp.

"Come on, Dad," I muttered to the empty walls. "Talk to me."

The dehumidifier rattled in the corner. That was all the answer I got.

I yanked a yellow legal pad toward me, clicked a ballpoint, and drew three clean columns. Walt Kessler never trusted laptops or cloud backups. He trusted ledger paper, sharp pencils, and an inside joke he only ever told me. He taught it to me over cold pancakes when I was ten, calling it our secret game.

Page one was boring Castellane business on the surface. Dock handling fees. Teamster kickbacks.