Chapter 3 - The Bloodline AuditWe left the unconscious guards locked inside the study and drove straight to downtown Manhattan, bypassing the Mercer shipping offices and heading directly for the headquarters of Apex Trust & Holdings—the primary financial institution that managed our family’s offshore accounts. The glass-and-steel monolith towered over the harbor, a monument to corporate ruthlessness built on the blood of the New York dock wars.
Roman strode through the revolving glass doors like an executioner entering a throne room. The lobby receptionist opened her mouth to challenge us, but took one look at Roman’s frozen expression and the cold, unyielding way he held my arm, and immediately dropped her gaze back to her monitor.
"Top floor," Roman said, pressing the private executive elevator button with his thumbprint. "We’re going to see CEO Lawrence Vance. He’s the notary who certified Grant’s fraudulent will amendment."
"Vance won't talk," I warned as the elevator surged upward at breakneck speed. "He’s too terrified of Grant’s connections to the syndicate."
"Vance is terrified of Grant because he thinks Grant holds all the cards," Roman replied, pulling the black calfskin ledger from his overcoat pocket. "We’re about to show him a different deck."
When the elevator doors slid open on the penthouse floor, the atmosphere changed instantly. The sprawling corporate suite was silent, carpeted in deep gray wool that muffled every sound. Lawrence Vance’s executive assistant rushed out from behind a marble desk, her hands shaking.
"Mr. Caruso! Mrs. Caruso! You can't just—Mr. Vance is in a high-level board meeting with—"
Roman didn't break stride. He brushed past her, kicked open the frosted glass doors of the executive boardroom, and strode inside. Lawrence Vance sat at the head of a massive conference table surrounded by three corporate lawyers. They all froze, looking up in shock as Roman slammed Arthur Mercer’s original black ledger flat against the polished walnut wood.
"Meeting's adjourned," Roman announced, his voice slicing through the tense silence like a razor. "Gentlemen, pack your briefcases and get out. Unless you want your names listed on page forty-two of this book alongside the federal indictments currently sitting on my desk."
Vance’s face went the color of spoiled milk. He stood up so fast his leather chair crashed backward onto the carpet. "You... you have no right. That book was supposed to be destroyed!"
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"And there it is," I stepped out from behind Roman, my voice ringing clear and steady across the boardroom. I walked right up to Vance, looking him dead in the eye. "You admit the documents you filed after my father's stroke were based on a coerced amendment, while the legal framework of Mercer Logistics remains governed by the terms in this ledger."
Vance swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. He looked at the corporate lawyers, who were already sliding their tablets into their leather bags and heading for the exit without a backward glance. In the cutthroat world of the New York underworld and corporate finance, loyalty died the second a bigger predator entered the room.
