Chapter 3 - The Blood LedgerVictor slammed a thick, leather-bound ledger onto the mahogany desk. Dust puffed up from its yellowed pages, smelling of old paper and dried ink.
"This is your father's private ledger," Victor said, flicking the clasp open with a sharp click. "The one he kept locked in the wall safe. The one Julian Vance tried to burn twenty years ago before the roof caved in."
Adrian stepped away from Claire, his eyes fixed on the book. "I thought it was destroyed in the fire."
"It was damaged," Victor corrected, pointing to the scorched edges of the pages near the binding. "The outer margins are charred, but the inner text is intact. Look at page two hundred fourteen."
Adrian flipped the heavy pages until he reached the designated number. Written in his father's bold, fountain-pen handwriting was a list of names, bank routing numbers, and dates stretching back to the late nineties. At the bottom of the page, underlined twice in red ink, was a single name: Julian Vance.
Beside Vance's name was a notation: Embezzled $4.2 million from the dock unions. Faked his own death with the help of federal prosecutor Daniel Thorne.
Adrian looked up at Victor. "Daniel Thorne? The federal judge who presided over the zoning commission hearings for our new shipping terminals last month?"
"The same one," Victor said grimly. "Thorne retired from the bench ten years ago and went into private corporate law, but he still pulls strings in the Eastern District court. If Vance is back in New York, he didn't sneak back in. He was brought back under federal protection."
Claire stood near the fireplace, shivering despite the residual warmth of the unlit logs. "That's why he wasn't afraid," she whispered, her voice shaking. "That's why he sat at the head table of the most dangerous man in New York without flinching. He has a badge behind him. A federal judge is backing his return."
Adrian didn't answer immediately. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out into the pitch-black gardens where the rain lashed relentlessly against the glass. Reflected in the dark glass, his face looked startlingly like his father’s—the same sharp cheekbones, the same unyielding jawline, the same cold, calculating intelligence that had built the Moreland empire from the ashes of the old waterfront wars.
"A federal judge playing shadow games with a dead ghost," Adrian murmured softly. He turned around, his expression hardening into absolute granite. "Victor, pull every file we have on Daniel Thorne. Every property he owns, every offshore account he touches, every mistress he visits on the weekend."
"Already on it," Victor said, reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out a slim manila folder. "I anticipated this twenty minutes ago. Thorne has a weekend estate in the Hamptons—Sag Harbor, right on the water. And guess who checked into a local motel under an alias three miles away from Thorne's estate tonight? A gentleman with a scarred eyelid."
A cold, humorless smile touched the corners of Adrian’s mouth.
"He thinks he's staging a comeback," Adrian said quietly. "He thinks twenty years have made us soft because we wear bespoke tuxedos and drink French champagne instead of running whiskey through the fog in speedboats."
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He looked at Claire. She shrank back against the mantlepiece, her eyes wide with terror and guilt.
"You," Adrian said, his voice dropping an octave, sending a shiver down her spine. "You are going to help us finish this."
