Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Inside His Own House
Richard Shaw arrived at headquarters at 7:10 a.m.
He walked into Declan’s office furious.
“What is this emergency?”
Declan tossed the ledger onto the desk.
Richard stopped.
Clara saw recognition before he concealed it.
Declan saw it too.
“Sit.”
“I don’t take orders from my nephew.”
“Today you do.”
Richard looked at Clara.
“This is family business.”
Declan’s answer was immediate.
“She stays.”
Again.
Two words that changed Clara’s place in the room.
Richard sat.
Declan opened the ledger.
“Two million dollars.”
“I can explain.”
“Please.”
Richard exhaled.
“Sullivan approached me eighteen months ago.”
“The payments began three years ago.”
Richard’s eyes shifted.
Declan leaned forward.
“Try again.”
“I didn’t know about the earlier money.”
“What did you know?”
Richard rubbed his face.
“Sullivan said Moreau wanted peace.”
“We already had peace.”
“He wanted a permanent arrangement.”
“For two million dollars?”
“No. That money wasn’t payment.”
“What was it?”
Richard hesitated.
Clara spoke.
“A buy-in.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed at the ledger.
“Look at the amounts. Sullivan gets regular payments. Other names receive percentages. Richard’s is a single round number.”
She looked at Richard.
“You invested.”
Richard said nothing.
Declan’s voice dropped.
“In what?”
Richard finally answered.
“A new freight consortium.”
Marcus swore quietly.
“Moreau’s consortium?”
Richard nodded.
Declan stood.
“You invested two million dollars in my competitor.”
“I was protecting this family!”
“By selling me out?”
“I thought you were expanding too quickly.”
Declan stared at him.
Richard continued.
“Your father built this company carefully. You turned it into an empire in ten years.”
“And that offended you?”
“It frightened me.”
“So you helped Sullivan?”
“I gave him information.”
Clara felt the room go colder.
“What information?” Declan asked.
“Contracts. Negotiations.”
“Routes?”
“No.”
“Security schedules?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Declan slammed his palm against the desk once.
Richard flinched.
“Do not lie to me.”
“I’m not!”
Clara looked at the ledger.
Something bothered her.
“Declan.”
He turned.
“The handwriting changes.”
Richard stared at her.
Clara compared several pages.
“First section is Sullivan. Later pages are someone else.”
Marcus leaned closer.
“She’s right.”
Clara looked at Richard.
“You didn’t write these?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
She flipped pages.
Then found initials.
D.S.
Declan Shaw.
Marcus immediately said, “Someone’s framing him.”
Clara studied the dates.
“No.”
Declan looked at her.
“No?”
“It’s too obvious.”
She turned several pages.
“Whoever kept this ledger wanted it discovered eventually.”
Richard frowned.
Clara pointed at the sequence.
“The numbers are too clean. Dates correspond perfectly to transactions. Real criminal records are messy. This is practically an index.”
Declan understood.
“A false trail.”
“Yes.”
“Leading to me.”
“And Richard.”
Marcus said, “Then Sullivan wanted us to find this.”
Clara nodded.
“Which means the storage locker wasn’t a mistake.”
Declan immediately grabbed his phone.
“Get everyone out of there.”
Marcus called his team.
Too late.
A message arrived.
The storage locker had been emptied.
Everything except the ledger was gone.
Clara whispered, “He knew.”
Declan turned toward Richard.
“How does Sullivan know our moves before we make them?”
Richard shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Clara did.
Or at least she had an idea.
She returned to her laptop.
“Every compromised operation had one thing in common.”
“What?”
“The information passed through executive scheduling.”
Declan frowned.
“My calendar?”
“Yes.”
“Only you control it.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus stared at her.
Clara continued.
“Someone has been reading my calendar for three years.”
She opened system permissions.
There were two authorized devices.
Her office computer.
Her phone.
And then—
a third.
Unknown device.
Active.
Right now.
Clara disconnected it.
A warning appeared.
ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE.
She stared.
“I can’t remove it.”
“Who can?”
Declan asked.
“Only someone with executive-level administrator privileges.”
Marcus went still.
“There are four people.”
Declan.
Marcus.
The technology director.
And—
Richard Shaw.
Everyone looked at Richard.
His face went pale.
“That isn’t me.”
Clara believed him.
Because Richard wasn’t looking at Declan.
He was looking at the doorway.
Clara followed his gaze.
A woman stood there.
Elegant.
Silver-haired.
Composed.
Declan’s mother, Eleanor Shaw.
She held a phone in one hand.
May you like
And on Clara’s screen, the unknown device suddenly disconnected.
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