Chapter 5 - Blood on the Ledger
Vivienne stood entirely still, the silver edges of the locket digging painfully into her palm. She felt the heavy beat of her heart against her ribs, loud and frantic in the wide, silent kitchen.
Mateo walked toward the island slowly. He didn't look angry; he looked exhausted, the skin beneath his eyes shadowed with the strain of a night spent managing a war she had triggered.
“You’re up early,” he said, stopping on the other side of the marble counter. He reached for a clean glass from the rack, filled it with water from the tap, and drank it down in three long swallows. When he set the glass down, his gaze returned to her hand.
“Open your fingers, Vivienne.”
“It’s nothing,” she whispered.
“Vivienne,” his voice dropped, carrying that familiar, quiet authority that left no room for negotiation. “Open your hand.”
She swallowed hard, knowing that hiding it was impossible. With fingers that trembled despite her best efforts, she turned her hand over and uncurled her fingers.
The silver stag gleamed against her skin. The folded paper and the tiny black chip rested beside it.
Mateo’s expression didn't change, but the air in the kitchen suddenly turned frigid. He looked at the locket for a long, quiet moment, then reached out and picked up the paper with two fingers. He unfolded it, his eyes skimming Declan’s handwriting in less than two seconds.
He didn't read it aloud. He simply folded it back up and set it down on the marble.
“Did he give this to you before or after you kissed him?” Mateo asked. His voice was terrifyingly devoid of emotion.
“During,” she said, her voice barely audible. “When he pulled me close. He must have slipped it into my bag while his hand was on my waist.”
Mateo let out a soft, humorless breath through his nose. He picked up the tiny microchip, holding it between his thumb and index finger against the light.
“A Trojan horse,” Mateo murmured. “He knew my men would search him at the door. He knew he couldn't get a wire or an encrypted drive into the building himself. So he used my wife’s vanity to carry it through the front gates.”
The word *vanity* felt like a slap across the face.
“He said you lied to me about my father,” Vivienne countered, the defensive fire flaring up through her fear. “Is it true? Did you lie about how he died?”
Mateo looked at her, his dark eyes impenetrable. “Your father was a reckless gambler who sold information to three different cartels simultaneously, Vivienne. He lived on borrowed time for ten years.”
“That doesn't answer the question, Mateo!” she cried, taking a step forward. “Did you kill him?”
Mateo did not flinch. He did not deny it. He simply set the chip down beside the locket.
“If I wanted your father dead, I wouldn't have married you to save his estate,” he said coldly. “I would have let Fitzpatrick skin him alive in Queens and taken you from the wreckage anyway.”
The brutal honesty of his words knocked the breath from her lungs.
“Then what is on that drive?” she demanded.
Before Mateo could answer, the front door of the penthouse burst open. Lorenzo entered the foyer at a dead run, his weapon already drawn in his right hand.
“Boss!” Lorenzo yelled, abandoning all formality. “We have an incoming vehicle breach at the subterranean gate! It’s Fitzpatrick’s heavy crew—they took out the gate guards with suppressed rifles!”
A muffled explosion reverberated through the concrete floors beneath their feet, shaking the pendant lights above the kitchen island. The crystal glasses in the cabinets chimed in violent discord.
Mateo didn't panic. In a single, fluid motion, he reached into the drawer beneath the counter, pulling out a sleek black Sig Sauer. He racked the slide with a clean, metallic snap.
“Lorenzo, lock down the private elevator,” Mateo ordered, his voice cutting through the rising alarms now shrieking from the building’s security console. “Take two men to the secondary stairwell. Do not let them reach the fiftieth floor.”
“Understood!” Lorenzo turned and bolted back down the hallway.
Mateo stepped around the island, grabbed Vivienne by the upper arm, and pulled her toward the reinforced hallway that led to his private study.
“Mateo, what’s happening?” she gasped, stumbling over the hem of her silk robe as another distant boom rattled the high-rise.
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“What is happening, Vivienne,” Mateo said, his eyes scanning the security monitors along the corridor wall as the camera feeds flickered and died one by one, “is that Declan Fitzpatrick just called our bluff. And he didn't come for an apology.”
***
