Chapter 46 - BLOOD IN THE EMBERS
"How could she do that?" I asked, following Vincent out into the blinding white daylight.
Outside, three black armored Suburbans were idling, their exhaust pluming into the freezing air. The bodies of four syndicate mercenaries lay facedown in the crimson-splattered snow, neutralized by Vincent’s arrival team before they could breach the cabin’s perimeter.
Vincent helped me into the heated interior of the lead SUV, his hands remarkably gentle as he checked Hope’s blanket, ensuring the biting wind didn't touch her skin.
"Francesca forged Daniel’s will," Vincent explained grimly, sliding into the leather seat beside me as the armored convoy began rolling back toward New York City. "She produced a signed declaration dated three days before Daniel’s death, stating that any child born to a servant in his household was the product of coercion and disqualified from inheritance."
"That's a lie!" I gasped. "Daniel gave me his journal. He wrote everything down!"
"Daniel’s journal burned in your car, Sarah," Vincent said quietly.
The realization struck me like a physical blow. The green binder. The bomb.
"Salvatore didn’t set the bomb to kill us," I breathed, my eyes widening with horrifying clarity. "Francesca did. She wanted the physical proof destroyed. Without the original written journal, the court—and the underworld council—will honor the forged contract."
"Precisely," Vincent said, pulling a titanium laptop from the compartment in front of him. "At midnight tonight, the Syndicate Commission convenes to ratify her claim. Once they swear allegiance to Francesca, she controls fifty billion dollars in offshore capital, every port in the eastern seaboard, and an army of three thousand men. The first order she will sign is a bounty on you and Hope."
"We can't fight an army, Vincent," I said, looking down at my innocent daughter, sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the war being fought over her tiny existence.
"We don't have to fight an army," Vincent replied, a cold, calculating smile touching his lips for the first time in days. "Daniel Bennett was many things, Sarah, but he was never a fool. He knew Francesca was a viper long before he died. Do you really think he left the only copy of his truth in a paper binder?"
"What are you saying?"
Vincent tapped a command into the laptop, turning the screen toward me.
A digital scan of Daniel’s handwritten notes appeared on the screen—every page, every ledger, every personal letter he had ever penned to me during those long, quiet nights in the mansion study.
"Daniel backed up every single document onto an encrypted ledger key," Vincent said softly. "And he hid the key where no one would ever look."
"Where?"
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Vincent reached out, his thumb gently brushing against Hope’s wrist, lifting the tiny silver identification bracelet that had been clamped around her arm the morning she was born in that cold mountain clinic.
"Inside the child's hospital band."
