PART 2.
“Don’t look now,” Claire whispered beside me, “but the man stealing from you is sitting at your table.”
For one second, I thought I had misheard her.
The ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers, polished silver, tuxedos, champagne, and men who smiled while calculating how much damage they could do to one another before dessert.
I tightened my grip around the envelope.
“Who?”
Claire’s eyes flicked toward the table.
“Not yet.”
Then she leaned closer and whispered the name that made the entire room disappear.
“Evan.”
I didn’t move.
That was the first rule my father had taught me about bad news.
Never react before you know who is watching.
So I kept my face still while the Founders’ Dinner continued around us.
A waiter refilled a champagne glass.
Someone near the orchestra laughed too loudly.
Across from me, Evan was telling a story to Charles Moretti, one hand wrapped lazily around his whiskey.
My cousin looked exactly as he always did.
Comfortable.
Amused.
Untouchable.
I turned back to Claire.
“You’re certain?”
“No.”
That caught me off guard.
“You just accused my cousin of stealing millions from me.”
“I told you where the trail leads.
That isn’t the same thing as telling you I know why.”
My jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
Claire slid into the empty chair beside mine.
Evan noticed.
His gaze lingered on her for half a second before returning to Moretti.
Claire lowered her voice.
“The invoices tied to Vincent Hale are real.”
“So Hale is involved.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
“He isn’t controlling the accounts.”
She reached toward the envelope and tapped the third page.
“Look at the approval codes.”
I did.
Three authorization numbers appeared beside the transfers.
Nothing unusual.
“Those are internal routing codes.”
“I know.”
“They could belong to a dozen departments.”
“No.”
Claire pointed to the last four digits.
“Those codes are generated after executive authorization.”
I stared at her.
“How would you know that?”
“I process your executive expense approvals every Monday.”
Of course she did.
A detail so ordinary I had never considered it important.
Claire continued.
“Your authorization numbers begin with seven.”
I looked at the page.
The codes began with nine.
I already knew the answer before she spoke.
“Evan’s begin with nine.”
My stomach went cold.
Across the table, Evan laughed again.
The sound seemed different now.
Too easy.
Too familiar.
Three years of memories rearranged themselves in my head.
Late-night meetings he attended for me.
Contracts I trusted him to review.
Shipping disputes he volunteered to settle.
The times he told me not to worry because he had already handled something.
He had access.
Not enough to move millions directly.
But enough to approve charges.
Enough to hide money behind legitimate freight expenses.
I looked at Claire.
“Why didn’t accounting catch it?”
“They did.”
That answer was worse.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said they caught it.
I didn’t say they reported it.”
She opened her evening bag and removed a folded sheet of paper.
It was a resignation letter.
Dated six months earlier.
Signed by an assistant controller named Martin Delaney.
I remembered him vaguely.
Gray hair.
Cheap suits.
Always nervous.
“Delaney resigned.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.
Delaney disappeared.”
My eyes lifted.
“What?”
“He submitted that resignation electronically at 2:14 in the morning.”
“So?”
“He was supposed to attend his daughter’s wedding three days later.”
Claire looked directly at me.
“He never showed up.”
I said nothing.
“The police report says he left voluntarily.
His bank accounts haven’t been touched since.”
“How do you know all this?”
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“Because Delaney sent me something the night he disappeared.”
That was when I truly looked at her.
Not as my secretary.
Not as an employee.
As somebody I had apparently known almost nothing about.
“What did he send you?”
“A spreadsheet.”
“Why you?”
“I helped him correct a supplier report two weeks earlier.
Apparently he decided I was the only person in the building who checked numbers instead of signatures.”
There was the faintest edge in her voice.
Then she opened her bag again.
Evan suddenly spoke.
“Claire.”
We both looked up.
He was watching us.
His smile remained pleasant, but his eyes didn’t.
“You two seem serious.”
Claire closed her bag.
“Mr.
Mercer was asking about Monday’s schedule.”
Evan looked at me.
“At the Founders’ Dinner?”
“I’m demanding.”
“You’re boring.”
He smiled.
I smiled back.
“Drink your whiskey.”
For a second, neither of us looked away.
Then Moretti asked Evan something, and the moment passed.
Claire exhaled quietly.
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That I found something.”
“You’re guessing.”
“No.”
“How?”
“Because someone searched my apartment yesterday.”
That was the first time my expression almost broke.
“Someone what?”
“My front door wasn’t damaged.
Nothing was stolen.
But my desk drawer was half an inch open.”
“That’s your evidence?”
“I leave it flush.”
I almost told her how absurd that sounded.
Then I remembered the woman sitting beside me had somehow uncovered a theft my entire financial division had missed.
“What was in the drawer?”
“A copy of Delaney’s spreadsheet.”
“Was it gone?”
“No.”
“Then why search the apartment?”
Claire looked at Evan.
“To see whether I had it.”
A terrible possibility formed.
“If they left it…”
“They may have replaced it.”
I felt anger rise inside me.
Not hot.
Cold.
Precise.
The kind that made people disappear from payrolls and contracts and occasionally from cities.
“You came here anyway.”
“Yes.”
“That was reckless.”
“I considered staying home.”
“And?”
“I decided the people who searched my apartment might interpret that as fear.”
I stared at her.
For the first time that evening, Claire smiled.
It was barely there.
“I dislike rewarding bad behavior.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then Vincent Hale stood across the ballroom.
He wasn’t heading toward the exit.
He was heading toward us.
Claire noticed.
“So much for waiting,” I murmured.
Vincent stopped behind Evan’s chair.
“Roman.”
His face was pale.
Sweat shone along his temple despite the cool ballroom.
“Walk with me.”
Evan turned.
“Everything all right, Vince?”
Vincent ignored him.
That alone was strange.
Vincent Hale ignored nobody important.
I rose.
Claire did too.
Vincent shook his head.
“Just Roman.”
“No,” I said.
His eyes moved to Claire.
Fear flashed across his face.
Not irritation.
Not contempt.
Fear.
“She comes.”
Evan leaned back.
“Since when does your secretary attend private conversations?”
I buttoned my jacket.
“Since tonight.”
Something changed in Evan’s eyes.
There and gone.
Claire saw it too.
We followed Vincent through a side corridor leading toward the hotel’s private library.
The moment the ballroom doors closed behind us, Vincent grabbed my arm.
“Get her out of here.”
I removed his hand.
“Touch me again and you’ll regret it.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, Vincent.
Apparently I haven’t understood quite a lot.”
I pulled the envelope from my jacket.
His face collapsed.
“You’ve seen them.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“No.
You haven’t.”
Claire spoke.
“Then explain the transfers.”
Vincent stared at her.
“You should have stayed behind your desk.”
Claire’s expression didn’t change.
“And you should have created better shell companies.”
Vincent actually flinched.
I stepped between them.
“How much did you steal?”
“Nothing.”
I laughed once.
“Wrong answer.”
“I moved money.”
“For Evan.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
That was confirmation enough.
I stepped closer.
“How long?”
“Roman—”
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
My hand tightened around the papers.
“Why?”
Vincent opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
His gaze shifted past my shoulder.
Claire moved first.
“Roman.”
I turned.
Evan stood at the end of the corridor.
Alone.
No smile now.
“Interesting little meeting,” he said.
Vincent went white.
Evan walked toward us slowly.
His hands were empty.
“You should go back inside,” I told him.
“I could say the same.”
“You stole from me.”
Evan stopped.
For several seconds, the cousin I had known since childhood stared at me as if deciding which version of himself to use.
Finally, he sighed.
“Claire.”
She said nothing.
“You really are inconvenient.”
I stepped forward.
“Talk to me.”
“I am talking to you.”
“No.
You’re threatening my employee.”
Evan laughed softly.
“Your employee?”
His eyes shifted toward Claire.
“That’s adorable.”
Something about the way he said it bothered me.
Claire’s shoulders stiffened.
Evan noticed.
His smile returned.
There.
For the first time all evening, Claire looked unsettled.
I caught it.
“So you two know each other.”
Claire answered immediately.
“No.”
Evan answered at the same time.
“Yes.”
Silence.
I turned toward Claire.
She looked furious.
Not frightened.
Furious.
“Claire?”
Evan chuckled.
“This is becoming much more entertaining than I expected.”
She faced him.
“Stop talking.”
“Oh, now you want discretion?”
“Evan.”
My voice ended his amusement.
He looked at me.
“Explain.”
He studied Claire for another moment.
Then shrugged.
“Your perfect secretary used to have another name.”
The corridor seemed to narrow around us.
I looked at Claire.
“What name?”
She didn’t answer.
Evan did.
“Claire Bennett never existed before eight years ago.”
Vincent whispered, “Jesus.”
Evan continued.
“No school records before twenty-two.
No tax filings.
No childhood address.
Nothing.”
I stared at her.
She looked back at me without blinking.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
One word.
Calm.
Devastating.
“Who are you?”
Before she could answer, a door opened behind Vincent.
Two men entered.
I knew both.
Moretti’s security officers.
Except they weren’t looking at Vincent.
They were looking at Claire.
Evan sighed.
“I was hoping to avoid this.”
My hand went beneath my jacket.
One guard immediately raised his weapon.
“Don’t.”
The second aimed at Vincent.
Nobody moved.
I looked at Evan.
“You brought guns into a Founders’ Dinner?”
He gave me a tired expression.
“Roman, there are fifty guns in that ballroom.”
“Those men work for Moretti.”
“Not tonight.”
That was worse.
Evan had been preparing this.
Perhaps for months.
Perhaps longer.
Claire’s voice was quiet.
“You searched my apartment.”
Evan smiled.
“No.”
The answer surprised everyone.
Even Vincent.
“Then who did?”
Evan’s smile vanished.
“That’s the problem.”
For the first time, I heard something unexpected in his voice.
Fear.
He looked toward the library doors.
“We’re all out of time.”
I almost laughed.
“You expect me to believe you’re protecting us?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
“You stole millions.”
“Yes.”
The admission landed without hesitation.
Vincent cursed under his breath.
I stepped toward Evan despite the weapon pointed at me.
“You have five seconds to tell me why.”
Evan reached inside his jacket.
The guards tensed.
He slowly removed a phone.
Then tossed it to me.
A photograph filled the screen.
A man tied to a chair.
Blood on his shirt.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
I recognized him from employee files.
Martin Delaney.
Alive.
The timestamp was from two hours ago.
Claire took one involuntary step forward.
“He’s alive.”
“For now,” Evan said.
I looked at him.
“Who has him?”
“That is the question I’ve spent eleven months trying to answer.”
My anger hesitated.
Evan pointed at the envelope.
“The money wasn’t being stolen from you.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“It was being paid.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe you transferred millions to someone you can’t identify?”
“I transferred exactly what they demanded.”
“Why?”
Evan looked at Claire.
“Because they knew she worked for you.”
Everything stopped again.
Claire’s face emptied.
That frightened me more than any reaction could have.
I turned slowly toward her.
“What does that mean?”
She didn’t answer.
Evan did.
“Tell him, Claire.”
“Shut up.”
“Tell him why Delaney contacted you.”
“Evan.”
“Tell him what happened eight years ago.”
Claire moved toward him.
The guard raised his gun higher.
I stepped between them.
“Lower it.”
“He—”
“Lower the weapon.”
The guard hesitated.
Evan nodded.
The gun dipped.
Claire’s breathing was controlled, but I could see the pulse beating rapidly in her throat.
I had never seen her like this.
Not once.
“Claire.”
She looked at me.
“If there’s something I need to know, tell me now.”
Her eyes searched my face.
Then she looked away.
“My father worked in transportation.”
I waited.
“He owned a small freight company in New Jersey.”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel Voss.”
Vincent made a sound behind us.
I turned.
He had gone completely still.
“You know that name.”
Vincent whispered, “Everybody in freight knew Daniel Voss.”
I looked back at Claire.
“Why?”
She answered.
“Because he disappeared with thirty-two million dollars.”
Evan laughed bitterly.
“No.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Evan continued.
“Daniel Voss was accused of disappearing with thirty-two million dollars.”
There was a difference.
A very important difference.
“Whose money?”
I asked.
Nobody answered.
And then I knew.
“Mine.”
Evan shook his head.
“Your father’s.”
That hit harder.
My father had died nine years ago.
Officially, from a heart attack in his study.
Unofficially, half of Manhattan believed someone had helped the heart attack along.
I had inherited his businesses.
His allies.
His enemies.
Apparently I had inherited his secrets too.
Claire looked at me.
“My father handled freight for Arthur Mercer.”
I barely recognized my own voice.
“And you took a job with me.”
“Yes.”
“By accident?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
Three years.
Coffee every morning.
Calendars.
Meetings.
Late nights.
Her sitting ten feet outside my office while I trusted her with everything from financial reports to personal correspondence.
“You came looking for something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
The answer should have made me angry.
Instead, it made everything suddenly, horribly logical.
Her attention to shipping records.
Her knowledge of old contracts.
Her lack of fear tonight.
She had not wandered into my world.
She had entered deliberately.
“You thought my father killed yours.”
Claire swallowed.
“I thought someone connected to your father did.”
“And now?”
“Now I think Daniel Voss found something he wasn’t supposed to find.”
Evan stepped closer.
“Finally.”
I looked at him.
“You knew this?”
“Not when you hired her.”
“When?”
“About a year ago.”
“And instead of telling me?”
“I investigated.”
“You stole millions.”
“To keep people alive.”
Vincent laughed nervously.
“That’s what we’re calling it?”
Evan rounded on him.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Vincent fell silent.
Evan turned back to me.
“Someone contacted me eleven months ago.
They had Delaney.
They had records from your father’s companies.
Records nobody should possess.”
“What did they want?”
“Payments.”
“That’s all?”
“At first.”
Claire spoke.
“And then?”
Evan looked at her.
“Then they asked about you.”
Her face changed.
“What did you tell them?”
“That you were irrelevant.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care whether you believe me.”
Evan’s voice sharpened.
“I diverted money through Vincent because it made the transfers look like theft.
If Roman ever discovered them, he’d blame Hale.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You told me Roman knew.”
“I lied.”
“You son of a—”
The lights went out.
Not dimmed.
Not flickered.
Gone.
Someone screamed from the ballroom.
Then came the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
Three shots.
Another scream.
Glass shattered.
I reached for Claire in the darkness.
My hand found her arm.
“Down.”
More gunfire erupted.
One of the guards shouted.
A body slammed into the wall.
Then emergency lights flashed red.
The corridor returned in fragments.
Vincent was on the floor.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
One guard was gone.
The other lay motionless near the library door.
Evan had a gun in his hand.
Claire was beside me.
Alive.
“Move!”
Evan shouted.
The ballroom doors burst open.
People poured into the corridor.
Men in tuxedos.
Women running barefoot.
Security yelling contradictory orders.
Smoke drifted beneath the chandeliers.
Evan grabbed Vincent under one arm.
“Help me.”
“He’s dying.”
“He knows who contacted me.”
That was enough.
I caught Vincent’s other arm.
Together we dragged him through the library.
Claire locked the door behind us.
“There’s a service stairwell,” she said.
I stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“My father attended this dinner once.”
Evan stopped.
“When?”
Claire looked at him.
“The night before he disappeared.”
No one spoke.
Then something struck the library door from the other side.
Once.
Twice.
The lock splintered.
We moved.
Claire found a narrow service door hidden behind a bookcase.
We carried Vincent down two flights before his legs gave out.
He collapsed on the landing.
Blood covered my hands.
“Vincent.”
His eyes fluttered.
“Stay awake.”
He grabbed my sleeve.
“Wasn’t Evan.”
“What?”
“The first transfer.”
Evan crouched.
“What are you talking about?”
Vincent coughed.
Blood touched his lips.
“The first payment… happened before you came to me.”
Evan froze.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent shook his head weakly.
“Account existed already.”
“Who opened it?”
Vincent tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Claire knelt.
“Vincent.
Look at me.”
His eyes found hers.
She spoke slowly.
“Who opened the account?”
His fingers tightened around my sleeve.
Then he whispered a name.
A name I had not heard in nine years.
“Arthur Mercer.”
My father.
Vincent’s hand fell away.
For several seconds, the only sound was the alarm ringing through the hotel.
Evan stared at me.
“Roman…”
“No.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know that.”
Claire had gone pale.
I looked at her.
She was staring at Vincent’s blood.
No.
Not the blood.
Something sticking from his inside jacket pocket.
A photograph.
Claire pulled it free.
Old.
Creased.
Taken outside a warehouse.
Four men stood together.
Vincent Hale.
Martin Delaney.
My father.
And Daniel Voss.
Claire’s father.
But there was someone else at the edge of the photograph.
A woman.
Young.
Dark-haired.
I knew her face.
Not from business.
Not from company records.
From photographs in my childhood home.
My mother.
Claire whispered, “Roman…”
I took the photograph.
On the back, someone had written a date.
December 14.
Nine years ago.
The night my father died.
Below the date were five words.
THEY ALL AGREED TO LIE.
Then a phone began ringing.
Not mine.
Not Evan’s.
Claire slowly reached into Vincent’s jacket.
She pulled out a cheap black phone.
The screen showed UNKNOWN CALLER.
Evan whispered, “Don’t answer.”
Claire looked at me.
The phone kept ringing.
I took it.
“Roman.”
“Don’t.”
I answered.
For a moment there was only static.
Then a man spoke.
His voice was distorted.
“You finally brought the Voss girl to the right place.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Who is this?”
The man ignored me.
“Vincent is dead?”
I looked down.
“Yes.”
“Unfortunate.”
“What do you want?”
A soft laugh came through the receiver.
“Still asking the wrong question.
Just like your father.”
Claire moved closer, trying to hear.
I put the phone on speaker.
The voice continued.
“Ask Claire what was inside the package Daniel Voss left her before he vanished.”
I looked at Claire.
Her face told me everything.
She knew exactly what he meant.
Evan swore.
“Claire.”
She said nothing.
The caller laughed again.
“She never told you?”
“Tell me,” I said.
Her eyes met mine.
For three years, I had believed Claire Bennett was incapable of looking afraid.
I had been wrong.
“There was a key,” she whispered.
The voice on the phone went silent.
Evan stared at her.
“What kind of key?”
Claire swallowed.
“Safe-deposit.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“My father mailed it without a bank name.”
I looked at the phone.
“You heard her.”
The caller spoke.
“She’s lying.”
Claire’s head snapped toward the device.
“No.”
“You found the bank three weeks ago, Claire.”
Evan slowly raised his gun.
Not at me.
At Claire.
Her expression turned cold.
I stepped between them.
“Put it down.”
“Roman, think.”
“I am.”
“She found the bank and told nobody.”
Claire backed toward the stairwell wall.
“That isn’t true.”
The caller continued.
“Ask her where she was last Tuesday between four and six.”
I remembered.
Claire had left work early.
Dentist appointment.
At least that was what she had written on my calendar.
I stared at her.
“Claire.”
She looked at me.
Then at Evan.
Then at the dead man on the stairs.
Finally, she whispered, “I went to Brooklyn.”
Evan raised the weapon again.
“Why?”
“To open the box.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What was inside?”
Claire’s eyes returned to mine.
“Records.”
“What records?”
Her voice almost failed.
“Payments.”
“From whom?”
“Your father.”
I took one step closer.
“To whom?”
Claire looked devastated.
And suddenly I understood that whatever she was about to say frightened her more than the gunfire upstairs.
More than Evan.
More than whoever was on the phone.
She reached into the lining of her evening bag.
Not the main compartment.
A hidden seam.
From it, she removed a folded piece of paper.
She handed it to me.
I opened it.
A list of payments.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
Then one name.
Repeated again and again.
My mother’s.
I looked up.
“That’s impossible.”
Claire’s voice was almost a whisper.
“No.”
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“I know.”
The distorted voice came through the phone.
“No, Roman.”
A pause.
“Your mother disappeared when you were twelve.”
The stairwell seemed to tilt.
Evan stared at me.
Claire’s face had gone white.
I lifted the phone.
“If she’s alive, where is she?”
The man laughed.
Then the distortion vanished.
And the next voice I heard was a woman’s.
Older.
Soft.
Painfully familiar.
“Hello, Roman.”
I stopped breathing.
There are voices the mind forgets.
And voices the body never does.
I was twelve years old again, standing at the top of a staircase while my mother kissed my forehead and told me she would see me in the morning.
She never did.
I gripped the phone.
“Mother?”
Claire covered her mouth.
Evan whispered, “Oh my God.”
The woman on the phone inhaled slowly.
“My son.”
I couldn’t speak.
Then she said the words that destroyed everything I thought I knew.
“Do not trust Claire.”
Claire’s hand dropped.
“What?”
My mother continued.
“Daniel Voss didn’t disappear because of your father.”
A pause.
“He disappeared because of his daughter.”
Claire went completely still.
The line went dead.
And somewhere above us, footsteps started descending the stairs.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Claire looked at me.
Evan raised his gun.
And for the first time since she had whispered his name at the table, I no longer knew which one of them was lying.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
