Chapter 9
The camera archive from Warehouse Nine still existed.
Not on the main server.
On the maintenance backup.
My security team found it before dawn.
Grant stopped talking when he heard.
Vanessa did not.
“Video without sound proves nothing.”
I looked at her.
“Interesting that you already know it has no sound.”
She froze.
Another slip.
We watched.
Luis entered at 11:14.
Grant at 11:21.
Vanessa at 11:28.
The warehouse cameras went dark at 11:31.
Then the backup angle remained.
Low quality.
Enough.
Luis confronted Grant.
Grant shoved him.
Luis tried to leave.
Vanessa blocked the side door.
Maria stopped breathing.
Sophia sat in her lap eating slowly.
I wanted her upstairs.
She refused to leave Maria.
I allowed it.
The footage continued.
Grant hit Luis.
Luis fell behind stacked containers.
Vanessa stood watching.
No panic.
No attempt to help.
Then she bent down and picked up something.
Luis’s phone case.
Empty.
She looked furious.
That explained eight months of searching.
Luis had already hidden the real phone.
The recording ended before his death.
Vanessa smiled.
“See?”
“What?”
“You still don’t know what happened.”
Maria stared at her.
“You watched him.”
Vanessa shrugged.
“He threatened family.”
“Your family betrayed Daniel.”
Grant shouted:
“Watch your mouth.”
Maria finally turned on him.
“You starved my child.”
Grant smiled.
“And she’s still standing.”
Daniel’s bodyguard shifted.
Grant noticed.
“Don’t look at me like that. Five days without proper meals isn’t death.”
Sophia whispered:
“It hurt.”
Grant looked at her.
“Then remember it next time adults tell you to stay out of things.”
I stepped between them.
“Enough.”
He smirked.
“You’ve gone soft.”
“No.”
I leaned closer.
“I’ve become very clear.”
Then my security captain entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Luis wasn’t the only person Grant was meeting.”
He placed three still images on the marble island.
Grant.
Dominic Voss.
And one of my own senior capos.
Vincent Shaw.
Twenty-one years in the Hayes organization.
A man who had held my father’s coffin.
Grant smiled.
May you like
“There’s your real problem.”
And suddenly the betrayal reached far beyond my fiancée’s family.
