Chapter 27

Chapter 27:Hidden files

The city looked the same. Tall towers still clawed at the heavens, their mirrored sides catching the dying sun like knives of light. But Isla could feel it in her bones—something had shifted. Not in the skyline, not in the buildings.

In her.

The city hadn’t changed.

She had.

She rode in silence, her forehead pressed to the cold window of Christopher’s car. Rain tapped softly on the glass. Outside, everything blurred—streets she used to know, alleys that once whispered secrets, neon signs flickering like old memories. Her reflection stared back at her, distant and tired.

In the back, the man they’d captured was unconscious—duct-taped, bleeding, tucked into the trunk like a nightmare no one wanted to deal with just yet.

Christopher didn’t speak for miles. When he did, his voice was low. Careful.

“You know what we’re looking for?”

“No,” she said without looking at him. “But I’ll know it when I see it.”

He nodded once. That was enough.

---

Her father’s old office was a relic on the edge of the financial district—forty stories of marble and glass, once buzzing with power. Now, it loomed in silence, its lights long dead. The kind of silence that held its breath.

The kind that watched you.

Christopher picked the side door like someone who’d done it too many times before. Isla slipped in behind him, the scent of dust and stale air hitting her like a memory.

The elevator wasn’t working. Of course not.

They climbed the stairs—twelve floors, one breathless step after another. The echo of their shoes rang like ghosts behind them.

When they reached the top, Isla froze.

There it was. Frosted glass. A faint outline of her father’s name still clinging to it like a forgotten truth: Julian Roth.

She reached for the handle, hand trembling.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Christopher said behind her.

“I know.” She didn’t look back. “But I want to.”

She pushed the door open.

---

The office had been left behind like a sealed tomb. Everything was untouched. As if the world had moved on, but this place hadn’t gotten the memo.

Dust blanketed the room. Her father’s jacket still hung from the coat rack in the corner, its sleeves limp, shoulders bowed like he was still wearing it.

She moved slowly, pulling open drawers. Useless files. Empty ledgers. Surface lies.

Christopher ran his hands over the bookshelf, pressing gently at the edges, searching for hollow spaces or false backs. The silence stretched.

Then Isla’s gaze landed on the portrait above the desk—her father’s face painted in stiff, regal tones. She stepped toward it, something rising in her chest. Regret? Resentment? She wasn’t sure anymore.

She touched the frame.

A soft click.

The painting swung open on hidden hinges.

Behind it, a small black safe.

Christopher let out a breath. “How original.”

“No,” she said, eyes narrowing. “He was just thorough.”

She dropped to her knees, fingers dancing over the dial.

Not his birthday.

Her mother’s death date.

Her own childhood address.

The safe clicked open.

Inside was a leather-bound journal, a battered phone, and a flash drive with no label.

She stared at them like they might speak.

Christopher crouched beside her. “Is that all?”

“No,” she murmured, picking up the journal. “This is where it starts.”

---

They sat cross-legged on the office floor, the journal open between them. The ink was smudged in places, the paper curled at the edges. Her father’s handwriting was sharp and confident, every word laid down like he meant it to last.

> Victor was never the disease. Just a symptom. The real sickness runs deeper—old names, older money. I tried to tear it down. From the inside. But it’s spreading faster than I ever imagined. If this gets to you, Isla, it means I failed.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Christopher leaned closer, reading with her.

“He was trying to end it,” he said. “He wasn’t part of the machine—he was fighting it.”

She shook her head slowly. “He let it eat him alive.”

At the end of the journal, in a shaking scrawl, he had written just one line:

> If I don’t make it—Isla, forgive me. And finish what I started.

She closed the book. Her hands trembled.

Not from sadness.

From fury.

“He kept me in the dark,” she said, eyes burning. “He made me hate him just to protect me.”

Christopher was quiet.

“So did you,” she added.

“I never lied to you,” he said calmly. “I just never told you everything. There’s a difference.”

“Not to me.”

---

The safe house above the old law firm smelled of mothballs and forgotten time. Vi had stayed behind, sharpening her knives—figuratively and literally. She was preparing for the interrogation.

Isla stood in the shower until her skin turned red. Until the water ran cold. She wanted to wash it all away—the grime, the blood, the weight of her father’s secrets.

But some stains were deeper.

When she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, Christopher stood by the window. Shirt off, scars crisscrossing his back. A map of pain, earned over time.

She didn’t announce herself. Just watched him.

“Did you love her?” she asked finally.

He didn’t turn. “Who?”

“My stepmother. Naomi.”

A beat.

“I thought I did,” he said. “Before you.”

She moved closer. “And now?”

Now he turned. His eyes were tired but full of something else—something harder, sharper.

“Now I regret ever touching her. Because I didn’t know what it meant to feel something until you.”

The space between them collapsed.

He caught her as she leaned into him—head against his chest, breath shaky. His arms wrapped around her like a promise he didn’t know how to make.

They didn’t speak again.

They didn’t need to.

---

The flash drive was a weapon.

Not a bullet. A bomb.

Christopher loaded the files onto his laptop. Isla leaned over his shoulder as name after name scrolled down the screen.

Banks.

Offshore accounts.

Donations to nonprofits that were just shells for trafficking rings.

Politicians bought and paid for.

Universities laundering money through fake endowments.

At the heart of it all?

Victor Kane.

Her blood ran cold.

Christopher’s voice was grim. “He’s the spider. And this is his web.”

Isla stared at the screen.

Her father hadn’t left her evidence.

He’d left her a war.

“And he knew I’d be

the one to finish it,” she said.

Christopher nodded. “He gave you the map.”

“So why,” she whispered, “does it still feel like we’re already losing?”

He didn’t answer.

Because he didn’t know either.