Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Daniel Cross
"We need to move. Right now," Clara urged, her voice trembling like dry leaves in a storm. She scooped Leo into her arms, completely ignoring the soda and chocolate that smeared across her beige silk dress. The little boy buried his face into the crook of his mother’s neck, his small chest heaving with silent sobs.
Maya’s mind raced. Her cheek still burned from Vance’s slap, but physical pain meant nothing compared to the seismic shift in reality Clara’s words had caused.
Daniel Cross was Maya’s older brother.
Six months ago, the authorities had pulled Daniel’s mangled sedan from the bottom of the Black River Canyon. The official police report, stamped and signed by the county coroner within forty-eight hours, ruled it an open-and-shut case: a tragic, alcohol-induced suicide. They claimed Daniel had been drowning in undisclosed personal debt, suffered a mental breakdown, and driven his vehicle off the guardrail at ninety miles per hour.
Maya had never believed a word of it. Daniel didn’t drink. He didn't gamble. He was Vance Logistics' chief financial auditor—a brilliant, meticulous man who lived exclusively for numbers and his family. But when Maya tried to investigate, her credentials had been revoked, her apartment broken into, and cryptic warnings delivered to her door.
Now, staring down at the ruined billionaire struggling in the wreckage of crystal and cake, Maya saw the truth laid bare. Daniel had not died because he was broken. He had died because he had found something that could bring men like Richard Vance to the gallows.
"Security! Hold them!" Vance choked out from the floor, struggling against the weight of a shattered mahogany board. His eyes were wild, darting toward the four towering men in dark suits stationed at the perimeter exits. "Do not let that boy out of this room! Kill them if you have to! Lock down the perimeter!"
The four private security guards immediately reached into their suit jackets, their postures shifting from passive sentries to active executioners. The wealthy party guests screamed, scattering in all directions as the sight of concealed firearms shattered the illusion of an elite social evening.
"Maya, the west exit!" Clara cried out, her breath ragged.
"Stay behind me, Clara. Keep Leo's head down," Maya commanded, her combat instincts taking complete control.
Maya snatched two heavy, unbroken bottles of vintage champagne by their long necks from a nearby service cart. The first guard, a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound mercenary with a military buzz cut, closed the distance fast, reaching for the sidearm beneath his armpit.
Maya didn't give him the chance to draw. She hurled the first champagne bottle like a fastball. It caught the guard flush on the temple, exploding in foam and thick glass. The man collapsed like a felled redwood.
The second guard was already pulling his Glock 19. Maya surged forward, ducking beneath the weapon’s sightline as the man raised his arm. She drove the base of the second bottle directly into his kneecap. The bone snapped with a sickening crunch. As the man bellowed and folded forward, Maya delivered a rising elbow strike to his chin, snapping his head back and sending him limp to the floor.
"Move!" Maya shouted, grabbing Clara's arm and hauling her through the decorative double doors leading to the service corridors.
Behind them, the ballroom had erupted into total pandemonium. Alarm sirens began to wail through the estate's high-tech system, casting sweeping red emergency lights across the gleaming white walls.
They sprinted through the labyrinth of the commercial kitchen. Prep cooks and dishwashers scrambled out of their way as Maya led Clara toward the loading dock. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
"Clara, talk to me!" Maya demanded as they burst through the rubber swing doors into the cool night air of the rear alley. "What proof? Daniel’s been dead for half a year! Why did Vance target Leo tonight?"
Clara was weeping, stumbling on the asphalt before Maya caught her. "Daniel knew they were going to kill him, Maya! A week before his car went off the bridge, he came home with bleeding hands and told me that if anything happened to him, I had to keep Leo safe at all costs. He said he had built a fail-safe. An unhackable ledger containing twenty years of human trafficking, political bribes, and offshore hit contracts Vance’s syndicate executed."
"Where is it?" Maya scanned the dark perimeter, her eyes catching the sweep of headlights near the estate’s outer gates. Black SUVs were already mobilizing.
Clara looked down at the boy in her arms, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper.
"Daniel didn't hide it in a bank, Maya. He didn't hide it in a safe deposit box or on the cloud. He hid the key inside the only thing Vance’s men would never think to tear apart."
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Clara touched Leo’s small, ratty denim jacket. In the child's clutching hands was an old, one-eyed plush teddy bear with worn brown fur—the same toy Daniel had bought him the day he was born.
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