Chapter 4 - The Stolen Ledger
Tessa didn't burst into theatrical tears. She didn't beg for her minimum-wage job or plead with the toxic manager to reconsider. She simply reached behind her back, untied her pristine white lace apron, dropped it carelessly onto the wet kitchen tile, and walked out the heavy metal back door without saying a single, solitary word.
The freezing, biting Chicago wind hit Tessa’s face the absolute second she stepped out into the dark, damp brick alleyway behind the luxury restaurant.
She didn't look back at the establishment that had tormented her. She reached up, aggressively pulled the humiliating white ruffled headband out of her brunette hair, and tossed it directly into a nearby garbage dumpster.
Tessa reached deep into the hidden, sewn-in pocket of her brown uniform dress. Her fingers curled securely around a small, surprisingly heavy silver USB flash drive.
A cold, deeply satisfied, and utterly lethal smile touched her lips.
To understand the absolute, unhinged arrogance of Victor’s behavior, one had to look at the meticulously hidden, bloody reality of Tessa’s life. She wasn't a desperate, uneducated woman working for tips. For the past three agonizing months, she had endured the humiliating maid uniform, the daily harassment, and the toxic management for one highly specific, highly dangerous reason: absolute access.
Victor wasn't just a restaurant manager with a bad attitude. He was a corrupt, treacherous, and deeply greedy underboss in Roman Thorne’s criminal syndicate. And exactly five years ago, Victor had orchestrated a brutal conspiracy, framing and murdering Tessa’s beloved father to steal his lucrative position in the mafia hierarchy.
Tessa had infiltrated the luxury restaurant to find the undeniable proof of his treason.
And tonight, while Victor was busy kissing up to Roman in the VIP section, blindingly focused on the billionaire, Tessa had flawlessly slipped into the manager's locked, heavily secured private office. Using specialized equipment, she had cracked his encrypted wall safe and downloaded the master financial ledgers.
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The flash drive currently resting in her palm didn't just prove that Victor had assassinated her father. It proved, in black-and-white accounting, that Victor had been actively embezzling tens of millions of dollars from Roman Thorne’s private laundering accounts for the last three years.
👉 Tessa finally had the weapon to destroy the monster, but she was about to walk straight into a terrifying, deadly ambush.
