Chapter 6 - The Ledger Behind the Poker Game
Paige learned very quickly that Roman Gallow never invited a man to play cards unless the game had already been decided.
The following Friday night, the top floor of Gallow Tower was transformed into something that looked civilized only from a distance. Low amber lights reflected off the glass walls. A private bartender polished crystal tumblers behind a walnut bar. Three security men stood near the elevators with the stillness of statues. Outside, Boston glittered beneath a cold spring rain, all chrome rooftops and black water.
At the center of the room sat a round poker table.
At that table sat Enzo Caruso, Luca’s cousin and the head of North End logistics.
He looked relaxed when he arrived. Too relaxed. He wore a navy suit, a gold watch, and the kind of smile men used when they believed family ties were stronger than evidence.
Paige stood near Roman’s desk with a leather folder pressed against her side. She was not serving drinks anymore. She was not invisible anymore. Tonight, she wore a black tailored blazer Roman’s assistant had quietly sent to her office that morning after Paige admitted she owned exactly one professional jacket and it still smelled faintly like restaurant grease.
Roman sat at the poker table with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, calm as winter.
“Enzo,” he said, dealing the cards himself. “You’ve been busy.”
Enzo smiled. “Shipping never sleeps.”
“No,” Paige said from across the room. “But numbers do repeat when someone gets lazy.”
Every eye turned toward her.
Enzo’s smile tightened.
Roman did not look at Paige. He simply placed one card face down, giving her the room.
She opened the folder.
“For six months, your division reported tariff adjustments on imported machinery shipments from Halifax, Rotterdam, and Marseille. Small amounts. Never large enough to trigger standard review. Four percent here. Three point eight there. But you copied the same rounding pattern across multiple unrelated vendors.”
Enzo leaned back. “Is this supposed to impress me?”
“No,” Paige said. “It’s supposed to warn you that I checked the port records against federal customs timestamps.”
That changed the room.
Luca, standing by the elevator, looked at his cousin with something colder than disappointment.
Paige continued. “The missing money didn’t go to you directly. That would have been stupid. It went through a consulting company called Harbor Clarity, then into three shell charities, then into private accounts tied to a dead union administrator.”
Roman finally looked at Enzo. “A dead man has been spending my money.”
Enzo’s jaw flexed. “Roman, I can explain.”
“I’m sure you practiced.”
“It wasn’t theft,” Enzo said quickly. “It was pressure. You don’t understand what’s happening outside this tower. The old men are restless. They think you’ve gone corporate. They think the waitress is reading spreadsheets while Boston forgets who owns the harbor.”
Paige felt the insult land, but she refused to flinch.
Roman’s expression did not move. “Who are the old men?”
Enzo looked around the room, suddenly aware that the windows were too high, the exits too far, and Luca’s face too unreadable.
“I don’t know names.”
Paige slid one page across the table. “Then why does your private account receive monthly transfers from a company controlled by Declan Vale?”
Silence struck the room.
Even Luca reacted.
Declan Vale was not a street operator. He was Roman’s family attorney, his late father’s closest adviser, and the man who had helped Roman rebuild the Gallow empire after the car bombing that killed his family.
Roman slowly lifted the page.
The rain hit the windows harder.
Enzo swallowed. “Roman.”
Roman’s voice went dangerously soft. “Do not say my name like we are boys sharing cigarettes behind church.”
Enzo’s fear cracked through his expensive confidence. “Declan said it was temporary. He said you were weakening the family by bringing in outsiders. He said Paige was a liability.”
Paige’s pulse jumped.
Roman’s eyes remained on the document. “What else did Declan say?”
Enzo hesitated one second too long.
Luca stepped forward.
Enzo lifted both hands. “He said the old books are still alive. He said if Paige found the wrong ledger, every federal agency in New England would come through your front door by sunrise.”
Paige felt the hairs lift along the back of her neck.
“The old books?” she asked.
Enzo looked at her then, and for the first time, she saw something worse than fear in his face.
Pity.
“You think you found skimming,” he said. “You found the edge of a graveyard.”
Roman stood.
No one else moved.
“Where is the ledger?”
Enzo shook his head. “I don’t have it.”
Roman walked around the table, slow and silent.
Enzo spoke faster. “I swear. Declan kept it hidden. He called it the Widow Ledger. Said your father made it before he died. Names, accounts, payoffs, judges, pension theft, everything. If that ledger gets out, half this city burns.”
Paige looked at Roman.
His face had changed.
The hollow darkness she had seen the night she spilled ice water on him had returned.
“My father didn’t keep records like that,” he said.
Enzo laughed once, bitter and terrified. “Your father kept records on everyone.”
Roman stopped directly behind him. “Including who ordered the car bomb?”
Enzo went still.
There it was.
The real reason the room had gone so cold.
Paige had read enough reports to understand the shape of a cover-up. Roman believed his oldest brother’s gambling debts had brought investors down on the family. But if the Widow Ledger existed, if it contained names, if it revealed who truly killed the Gallows five years ago, then Roman’s entire history had been built on a lie.
Enzo whispered, “Declan said you were never supposed to know.”
The words barely left his mouth before the elevators opened.
Declan Vale stepped out wearing a charcoal overcoat, silver hair immaculate, leather gloves buttoned at the wrist. He looked like a senator arriving for a private dinner, not a traitor walking into the room he had just been accused of poisoning.
“My apologies,” Declan said smoothly, eyes moving from Roman to Paige to the papers on the table. “Am I interrupting?”
May you like
Roman turned toward him.
“No,” he said. “You’re right on time.”
