Chapter 5 - The Man Who Knew the Numbers.
.Victor Kane recovered quickly.
He slid the silver key into his pocket and gave Damian the practiced look of a man irritated by confusion.
“Miriam called me.”
Damian stopped three feet away.
“Why?”
“She said there was a staff problem.”
“Finance directors don’t respond to staff problems on Saturday nights.”
Victor looked past him toward Anna.
“Apparently this one involves payroll.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“How did you know that?”
Only for a heartbeat.
But Damian saw it.
Anna saw it too.
Victor gave a small shrug.
“Miriam told me.”
From behind Damian came Miriam’s voice.
“No, I didn’t.”
Security had escorted her into the hallway.
The look she gave Victor was not loyalty.
Damian folded his arms.
“Interesting.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Nothing yet.”
Damian pointed to the key.
“But I am asking why you have a key to a locked office containing payroll records that were never supposed to exist.”
Victor glanced toward Miriam.
The silence between them answered more than either wanted.
The office door opened.
Lily stood beside the security guard who had been watching her.
She saw Victor and immediately stepped backward.
“Lily.”
“Do you know this man?”
Victor gave an uneasy laugh.
“Damian, don’t interrogate a child.”
“He came yesterday.”
Anna stared at Victor.
“You were here?”
Victor shook his head.
“She’s mistaken.”
Lily’s fingers tightened around the edge of her red dress.
“You gave Mrs. Vale the yellow envelope.”
Damian turned to him.
“What yellow envelope?”
“I have no idea.”
“It was in the office when you were making cakes.”
“What did they say?”
“Mrs. Vale said, ‘If this gets upstairs, we’re finished.’”
Victor stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Damian moved between him and Lily.
“No.”
His voice remained calm.
“That is exactly enough.”
He told security to take Victor’s phone and escort both managers to separate rooms.
Victor laughed in disbelief.
“You can’t confiscate my phone.”
“Then leave with it.”
“And your access to every company account ends before you reach the sidewalk.”
Victor’s face went rigid.
“You would destroy seven years of trust over a six-year-old’s story?”
“No.”
“I would destroy seven years of trust because a six-year-old is the first person in this building who has not benefited from lying to me.”
Victor handed over the phone.
Security led him away.
Anna sat beside Lily on the office sofa.
Her knees seemed weak.
Damian returned to his desk and opened the black ledger.
The first pages listed employee names and unexplained deductions.
The later pages contained initials.
And beside both sets of initials were amounts.
Then tens of thousands.
Damian’s gaze moved lower.
There were payments marked “damage recovery,” “uniform,” “discipline,” and “cash shortage.”
Some matched deductions from workers’ checks.
Others did not.
At the back of the ledger, one page had been folded over.
Damian opened it.
A single entry had been written yesterday.
A.H. - 4,800 - final settlement.
Anna stared at it.
“I never received $4,800.”
Damian already knew.
Below the entry was another line.
L.H. incident - leverage if needed.
Anna’s hand covered her mouth.
Lily did not understand the words.
His tattoos flexed across his knuckles as he closed the book.
He had spent years building a reputation that made dangerous people careful around him.
Yet someone inside his own business had decided a frightened child could be used as leverage.
He stood.
Anna looked up.
“What are you going to do?”
Damian’s voice was quiet.
“First, I’m going to find out what ‘incident’ means.”
Then the kitchen lights flickered.
Every computer screen in the office went black.
May you like
A second later, the security system alarm began to scream.
Someone had cut power to the building’s internal network.
