Chapter 6 - The Traitor’s Ledger
Mave did not sleep that night.
Neither did Vincent.
At three in the morning, they sat on opposite sides of the penthouse dining table while Barnaby occupied the chair between them like a hostile mediator.
The security system had been compromised cleanly.
Too cleanly.
No forced elevator access.
No disabled cameras.
No hacked biometric reader.
Someone had used a valid credential.
The building logs identified the credential as belonging to Carmine DeLuca.
Vincent’s oldest lieutenant.
Mave stared at the name.
“No.”
Vincent’s face revealed nothing.
“Credentials don’t lie.”
“People using them do.”
Carmine had been with Vincent since they were teenagers.
He had stitched Vincent’s shoulder after a knife fight at nineteen.
He had stood beside Vincent at his father’s funeral.
He had carried Gabe into the bunker after the Ironclad ambush.
If the evidence pointed to Carmine, Mave’s first instinct was not that Carmine had betrayed them.
It was that someone wanted Vincent to believe he had.
“Where is he?”
“Home.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Vincent leaned back.
“You’re defending him.”
“I’m defending logic.”
“The system says his credential opened the service elevator at eight forty-one.”
“And where was Carmine at eight forty-one?”
Vincent checked his phone.
“At the hospital visiting his daughter.”
Mave looked up.
“He has a daughter?”
“Lucia. Twenty-two. Appendicitis.”
“Then he didn’t use the credential.”
“He could have given it to someone.”
“Would he?”
Vincent did not answer immediately.
That hesitation mattered.
“No,” he said finally.
Mave turned the laptop toward herself.
“Then we assume the evidence is manufactured until we prove otherwise.”
By sunrise, she found the first crack.
Carmine’s credential had opened the elevator.
But the access server recorded the request two hundred milliseconds before the physical reader received the card.
Impossible.
Unless the event had been inserted into the log afterward.
“Someone edited the database,” she said.
Vincent stood behind her.
“Can you trace it?”
“Maybe.”
The change came from an internal administrator account.
That account belonged to the security contractor.
Mave pulled the personnel list.
Six administrators.
Five had remote access.
One had been terminated three months earlier.
“Daniel Voss,” she read.
Vincent knew the name.
“Used to work cyber for Keegan.”
“Why was he administering your security?”
“He wasn’t supposed to be.”
The contractor had acquired a smaller company the previous year.
Voss came with the acquisition.
Nobody had flagged him.
Mave closed her eyes.
Systems.
Always systems.
Empires did not fall because every guard failed.
They fell because one forgotten account remained active.
“Find him,” Vincent said.
Leo did.
Daniel Voss was found at eleven that morning in a motel near LaGuardia.
Alive.
Terrified.
And trying to leave the country.
Vincent wanted the interrogation conducted in a warehouse.
Mave insisted on being present.
The warehouse smelled of machine oil and cold concrete.
Voss sat in a metal chair.
No blood.
Not yet.
Leo stood behind him.
Gabe guarded the door.
Vincent leaned against a workbench.
Mave entered last.
Voss looked at her.
Recognition appeared immediately.
That told her more than any confession.
“You know who I am.”
Voss swallowed.
“No.”
“Bad answer.”
Mave placed a folder on the table.
It contained printed logs.
Not because she needed paper.
Because paper frightened people.
Digital evidence felt abstract.
Paper looked official.
“You used Carmine DeLuca’s credential to enter the penthouse.”
“I didn’t.”
“You altered the security logs.”
“No.”
“You retained administrator access after termination.”
“I—”
Mave opened the folder.
“You logged in from a device registered to a prepaid mobile hotspot purchased in Astoria. The hotspot was activated using a gift card bought at a pharmacy. The pharmacy has cameras.”
Voss went pale.
Most of that was true.
The camera part was a bluff.
Vincent noticed.
His mouth almost smiled.
Voss looked at him.
“Mr. Costa, I swear—”
“Look at her,” Vincent said.
Voss turned back.
Mave folded her hands.
“Thomas Keegan paid you.”
Voss’s breathing accelerated.
“How much?”
Silence.
“Twenty thousand?”
Nothing.
“Fifty?”
His eyes moved.
There.
“Fifty.”
Mave leaned back.
“Cheap.”
Voss flinched.
“You compromised biometric access, assaulted two guards, terrorized a housekeeper, and entered the home of Vincent Costa for fifty thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t assault anybody.”
“So there were others.”
Voss realized the mistake.
Vincent’s eyes went cold.
Mave continued before he could speak.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened the door.”
“Yes.”
“For whom?”
“I never saw them.”
“Names.”
“I don’t have names.”
“Then what do you have?”
Voss looked at Vincent.
Fear took over.
“Protection.”
“From whom?”
“Keegan.”
Mave waited.
Voss shook his head.
“Not from Keegan.”
Vincent straightened.
“Then who?”
Voss began sweating.
“There’s someone else.”
Nobody moved.
Mave felt the air change.
“Who?”
“I don’t know his real name.”
“Try.”
“They call him Bishop.”
Vincent’s face became unreadable.
Leo stopped breathing.
Mave looked between them.
“You know that name.”
Vincent pushed away from the workbench.
“Where did you hear it?”
Voss recoiled.
“Messages. Keegan’s network. Years ago. Bishop handled information. Judges. cops. accountants. People who could make records disappear.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent grabbed Voss by the shirt.
The chair scraped backward.
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
Mave stepped forward.
“Vincent.”
He ignored her.
“Vincent.”
His fist tightened.
“Look at me.”
He did.
Barely.
“Let him go.”
For one dangerous second, she did not know whether he would.
Then he released Voss.
The man collapsed back into the chair.
Mave turned to Leo.
“Take him somewhere secure. Nobody talks to him without us.”
Leo nodded.
Voss was removed.
The warehouse door closed.
Mave faced Vincent.
“Who is Bishop?”
Vincent walked away.
“An old story.”
“I’m listening.”
He stared at the concrete floor.
“My father used that name.”
Mave waited.
“Anthony Costa built the organization before me. Bigger than it is now. Dirtier.”
Vincent’s voice had changed.
He rarely spoke about his father.
When he did, every word sounded expensive.
“He had someone inside law enforcement. Nobody knew who. Whenever an investigation got close, evidence vanished. Witnesses changed statements. Warrants died.”
“Bishop.”
“That’s what my father called him.”
“Why?”
“I never asked.”
“What happened?”
“My father died.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Vincent looked at her.
“The week after he died, Bishop disappeared.”
Mave understood.
“And now Keegan was working with him.”
“Apparently.”
“Why would your father’s fixer help Keegan?”
Vincent’s expression darkened.
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
They returned to headquarters.
Mave spent the afternoon inside archives that had not been opened in years.
Old ledgers.
Legal files.
Photographs.
Boxes from Anthony Costa’s era.
The organization had digitized almost everything.
Almost.
Men like Anthony Costa trusted paper when secrets became too dangerous for servers.
At six thirty, Mave found a ledger bound in cracked brown leather.
No title.
No labels.
Only dates and initials.
Payments.
Judges.
Detectives.
Union officials.
A network of corruption written in Anthony Costa’s careful handwriting.
Mave turned pages.
Then stopped.
BISHOP — 250K — CONTINUITY.
The payment repeated every six months.
For nine years.
Then the final entry.
BISHOP — 1M — V.C.
Mave stared.
V.C.
Vincent Costa.
The date was two weeks before Anthony Costa died.
She carried the ledger into Vincent’s office.
He was on the phone.
One look at her face and he ended the call.
“What?”
She placed the book in front of him.
Vincent read the entry.
His color changed.
“What does V.C. mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Your father paid Bishop one million dollars and wrote your initials.”
Vincent stared at the page.
“I was twenty-six.”
“What happened that year?”
“My father died.”
“What else?”
Vincent said nothing.
Mave waited.
His eyes remained on the ledger.
Finally:
“I was supposed to die first.”
Mave felt cold.
Vincent walked to the window.
“There was a car bomb.”
She had never heard this.
“Where?”
“Outside a restaurant in Little Italy. I was supposed to be in the car.”
“What happened?”
“My driver took it around the block.”
The answer came flatly.
“He died.”
Mave looked at the date again.
Two weeks before Anthony Costa’s death.
“Who planted it?”
“We never found out.”
“And your father?”
“Heart attack.”
“Natural?”
Vincent turned.
“That’s what the report said.”
Mave opened the ledger again.
Bishop.
Continuity.
V.C.
A hidden fixer.
An attempted assassination.
A father dead two weeks later.
Then silence for years.
Until Thomas Keegan threatened Mave.
“This isn’t about the docks,” she said.
Vincent’s face hardened.
“No.”
“It never was.”
Keegan had known about Mave before the gala.
He had access to surveillance from before she worked for Vincent.
He had access to a network connected to Anthony Costa.
And now a man called Bishop was opening doors inside Vincent’s home.
Mave flipped through the ledger.
Near the back, several pages had been cut out.
Cleanly.
With a blade.
“Someone removed something.”
Vincent came closer.
The missing pages were exactly where entries from the final month of Anthony Costa’s life should have been.
Mave ran a finger along the cut paper.
“Who had access to these boxes?”
“Family. Senior people.”
“Names.”
Vincent looked at her.
“My uncle.”
“Which uncle?”
“Dominic.”
Mave knew Dominic Costa.
Everyone in New York knew Dominic Costa.
He was Anthony’s younger brother.
Retired.
Respectable.
Chairman of a charitable foundation.
A man who appeared at Christmas dinners and kissed Mave’s hand the first time Vincent introduced them.
“He’s seventy.”
“Sixty-eight.”
“He spends winters in Florida.”
“He also helped build the organization.”
Mave closed the ledger.
“Where is he now?”
Vincent checked his phone.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“He flew into New York yesterday.”
Mave felt the pieces move.
Not fit.
Not yet.
But move.
“Why?”
Vincent read the message again.
“He says he wants to meet you.”
Mave stared.
“Me?”
“At dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
Vincent looked at the clock.
“In an hour.”
Mave glanced at the old ledger.
At the missing pages.
At the million-dollar payment marked with Vincent’s initials.
Then she looked at the man whose family history had just become a crime scene.
“Fine.”
Vincent frowned.
“Fine?”
“We go to dinner.”
“Mave—”
“You said no unilateral sacrifices.”
“This isn’t a sacrifice.”
“No.”
May you like
She picked up the ledger.
“It’s an audit.”
