Chapter 4 - “It isn’t enough of one.”
I turned away.
For eight years, I’d imagined what I would say if I could confront the man responsible for my father’s death.
Now I was standing beside him, and he was telling me the death had never happened.
I felt something inside me breaking apart.
“My mother died believing he was dead.”
Nolan lowered his eyes.
“She spent her last years crying over him.
She kept his wedding ring in a little velvet box.
She talked to his photograph when she thought I wasn’t listening.”
My voice cracked.
“She used to say she couldn’t understand why he’d left the house that night without kissing her goodbye.”
I turned toward Nolan.
“Did he know she was dying?”
Nolan hesitated.
That was enough.
“Oh, God.”
“We haven’t established what he knew.”
“But he could have found out.”
“Yes.”
“He could have come home.”
Nolan said nothing.
I gripped the back of a chair.
For a moment, I hated him for being the person standing in front of me.
Then I remembered something else.
The warehouse.
My father begging.
The explosion.
I looked up.
“What really happened that night?”
Nolan drew a slow breath.
And finally, he told me.
Eight years earlier, Nolan Voss had been twenty-five and newly responsible for an empire he hadn’t built.
His father had died unexpectedly, leaving behind shipping contracts, warehouses, security businesses, and a criminal organization with obligations stretching from New York to several international ports.
“I inherited businesses that were already dirty,” Nolan said.
“That doesn’t excuse what I did afterward.”
“What did you do?”
“Smuggled untaxed goods.
Moved counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
Paid people to look away when cargo inspections should have happened.”
He didn’t soften the words.
I appreciated that more than I wanted to.
“For the first year, I convinced myself there were lines I wouldn’t cross,” he continued.
“Then your father came to me with evidence that somebody was using our freight routes to transport human beings.”
I felt sick.
“He discovered it?”
“He discovered inconsistencies in the manifests.
Containers that supposedly held machinery were being unloaded at night.
Workers were paid through accounts that didn’t appear in our books.”
“And you didn’t know?”
“I knew some of my men were moving unauthorized cargo.
I didn’t know what was inside those particular containers.”
I studied him.
“Why should I believe that?”
“You shouldn’t take my word for it.”
He pointed to the photograph.
“There are original manifests, witness statements, and financial records.
Some of them implicate me.
I’ll give them to investigators.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it immediately?”
His expression tightened.
“I tried to identify everyone involved before the people inside those containers disappeared.
I also worried about how much of my own organization was compromised.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“Part of it was.”
The admission disarmed me.
Nolan looked toward the fireplace.
“On the night of the explosion, your father called me to Red Hook.
He said the people running the operation knew he’d found their accounts.”
I remembered the rain.
My father’s frightened voice.
His fingers wrapped around Nolan’s coat.
“He was begging you to help him.”
“Yes.”
“And you walked away.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nolan’s eyes met mine.
“Because one of my men had located nineteen people locked inside a nearby storage building.
The men controlling the warehouse were preparing to move them.”
I stared at him.
“I had a choice,” he continued.
“Stay and protect your father, or take my security team to that building before the trucks left.”
My throat tightened.
“You chose the other people.”
“I did.”
“And he died.”
Nolan shook his head.
“I believed he did.”
He looked at the photograph.
“Until nine days ago.”
I tried to make the two versions of that night fit together.
The father I remembered had begged Nolan for protection.
Nolan had left to help other people.
Then the warehouse burned.
But my father had survived.
Somebody else had died in his place.
I looked up.
“Whose body was buried?”
Nolan’s jaw tightened.
“That’s one of the questions we’re trying to answer.”
A chill passed through me.
The dead man had been somebody’s father.
Or son.
Or husband.
For eight years, his family might have been looking for him while mine mourned the wrong person.
I stepped back from the desk.
“Who is my father now?”
Nolan didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said something that frightened me more than the photograph.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to discover.”
A sharp knock interrupted us.
Dante entered.
His face was tense.
“We found the holding rooms.”
Nolan straightened.
“Where?”
“Second floor, east wing.
Six women still inside.
Additional women may have been moved through the rear service entrance earlier tonight.”
My heart jumped.
“Mina?”
Dante looked at me.
“The woman in green?”
“No.
Dark hair.
Black dress.
Number Twelve.”
He checked his phone.
“She’s listed for transfer after midnight.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Transfer where?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Nolan glanced at his watch.
“How long?”
“Less than twenty minutes.”
I stared at them.
“What are you talking about?”
Nolan turned toward me.
“There’s a federal investigator outside this property.
She’s been building a case against Wexler’s operation.”
“Then call her!”
“We have.”
“Why aren’t the police already here?”
“Because Wexler has people watching the entrance, and the women are being held behind electronically controlled doors.
We needed to identify the rooms before officers moved in.”
I shook my head.
“You’re letting an auction happen while somebody collects evidence?”
Nolan’s expression darkened.
“We had planned to intervene before anyone was transported.
Your appearance changed the situation.”
“My appearance?”
“Someone deliberately placed you here.”
I looked down at the fraudulent contract.
The Aster Holdings reference.
My father’s initials.
The photograph.
Then I understood.
“You think this was arranged for you.”
Nolan didn’t deny it.
I felt my stomach twist.
“Why would somebody use me to get to you?”
“Your father knew me,” Nolan said.
“He knew what happened at Red Hook.”
“And he knew I’d recognize you.”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched.
I remembered Kara’s strange phone call.
No matter what happens, you know I love you, right?
I remembered the envelope in her apartment.
CARVER — VERIFIED — 17.
Suddenly, every detail felt deliberate.
I reached for the desk to steady myself.
“Kara.”
Nolan watched me.
“What about her?”
“She knew my father.
She was at his funeral.”
Dante glanced toward the door.
“We’ve located her downstairs.”
My head snapped up.
“She’s still here?”
“Yes.”
I started toward the hallway.
Nolan moved aside.
“Where are you going?”
“To ask my best friend why she sold me.”
“Olivia, she’s involved with dangerous people.”
“So am I.”
He looked at me for a moment.
Then nodded toward Dante.
“Bring her here.
And ask Agent Ortiz to move the entry team closer.
Tell her the east wing is occupied.”
Dante left.
I looked back at Nolan.
“If you really want to help those women, stop protecting the people who did this.”
His eyes were steady.
“I’m not protecting them.”
“Your name is on their shipping contracts.”
“I know.”
“You have money invested in their warehouses.”
“I know.”
“Then you don’t get to walk away pretending you’re innocent.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not anger.
Acceptance.
“I’m not innocent, Olivia.”
He reached into his jacket and placed a small black recording device on the desk.
“This records my conversations tonight.
Ortiz has copies of the financial evidence I’ve gathered.
If I leave this house, I’m going to face questions about every operation I ever authorized.”
“Even if it destroys your empire?”
He looked at me.
“Especially then.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him.
But for the first time, I wanted to know who Nolan Voss was when he wasn’t hiding behind his reputation.
Kara entered the study five minutes later.
Her silver dress shimmered beneath the warm lights.
Her makeup was ruined.
She looked at me and began crying.
“Olivia.”
I stood beside the desk.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
I had imagined shouting at her.
Slapping her.
Demanding to know how she could have betrayed sixteen years of friendship.
But when I saw her standing there, all I felt was a strange, empty exhaustion.
“How much?”
I asked.
She swallowed.
“What?”
“How much did they promise you?”
Tears slid down her cheeks.
“Liv, please.”
“Was it the whole two hundred thousand?”
She looked down.
I understood.
“They erased your debt?”
Her shoulders trembled.
“They said they would.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You traded me for a promise?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“What was supposed to happen?”
She covered her face.
“I thought—”
“You thought what?
That they’d give me a good job?
That the men bidding on women were recruiting employees?”
Kara began sobbing.
I stepped closer.
“You watched them take me out of that car.”
“I know.”
“You watched me scream for you.”
“I know.”
“And you walked away.”
Her voice broke.
“They told me they’d hurt me if I interfered.”
I stared at her.
“They threatened me too,” I whispered.
“But I still tried to help the other women.”
She lowered her head.
The room fell silent.
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
“Who approached you about me?”
Kara rubbed her face.
“A man named Elias Ward.”
Nolan went completely still.
“What did he look like?” he asked.
“Late fifties.
Gray hair.
Blue-gray eyes.
He wore expensive suits.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“At an office in Manhattan.
He said he represented the people I owed.”
I felt something tightening inside my chest.
“Did he ask for me specifically?”
Kara nodded.
“He already knew everything about you.”
My mouth went dry.
“What everything?”
“Your address.
Your school.
The legal office where you work.
Your mother’s death.”
I stared at her.
“He knew about my father?”
Her expression changed.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Kara hesitated.
“He said your father had left something valuable.”
Nolan stepped closer.
“What?”
“He called it an original ledger.”
My heart began pounding.
The blue storage box.
The old shipping records.
The annotated pages I’d discovered among my mother’s belongings.
I remembered one document I’d never been able to understand.
A shipping invoice marked with an unfamiliar account number.
ASTER — 0417.
Beneath it, my father had written three words.
SECOND BOOK — ORIGINAL.
I’d assumed it meant another accounting register.
Now I wasn’t so certain.
“Kara,” I whispered, “did he tell you why he wanted me?”
She looked at Nolan.
Then back at me.
“He said you were the only person who could convince Mr.
Voss to come to the house.”
A terrible thought formed.
“Did he tell you who he really was?”
“No.”
“Did he show you a photograph?”
Kara’s expression turned uncertain.
“No.
Why?”
I picked up the photograph from the desk.
Her eyes widened.
I held it out.
“Is this Elias Ward?”
Kara stared.
Then nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
I could barely breathe.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
My hand began trembling.
I turned the photograph toward myself.
My father’s face stared back.
Kara looked between Nolan and me.
“Olivia, who is that?”
I swallowed.
May you like
“My father.”
She stumbled backward.
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