Chapter 4 - BOX 317
They reached the First Metropolitan Bank before sunrise.
Victor brought Gabriel and two armored SUVs. Sadie sat beside him, her hands wrapped in clean bandages.
“You knew my father,” she said.
Victor watched the empty streets through the window.
“I met him twice.”
“What was he like?”
“Terrified.”
Sadie flinched.
Victor turned toward her.
“Fear doesn’t make a man weak. Your father knew powerful people wanted him dead, and he still collected evidence against them.”
“Did your family protect him?”
“My father promised he would.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
The honesty made her angrier than an excuse would have.
At the bank, the manager opened the private vault after Victor placed a pistol and a sealed court document on the desk.
“I assume one of those is meant to persuade me,” the manager said.
“Use whichever works faster,” Victor replied.
Box 317 contained no ledger.
Inside were three cassette tapes, a photograph, and a silver St. Christopher medal.
Sadie recognized the medal.
Her father had worn it every day.
She picked up the photograph.
It showed Thomas Hayes standing beside Victor’s father and four other men. One was Mick O’Shea. Another was Dr. Lawrence Bell, the chairman of St. Jude’s medical board.
Sadie’s stomach tightened.
“The man controlling Sam’s treatment was involved with my father?”
Victor examined the cassette tapes.
“Maybe he still is.”
Written across the first tape were the words:
IF THEY FIND MY CHILDREN, TRUST VICTOR.
Sadie looked sharply at him.
“My father wrote this before you even ran the Costello family.”
Victor turned the tape over.
“He knew I disagreed with my father’s business.”
“Did you?”
“I was twenty-three and stupid enough to believe I could change things without getting blood on my hands.”
“And were you right?”
“No.”
The manager found an old cassette player in the bank’s storage room.
Victor inserted the first tape.
Static filled the small office.
Then Thomas Hayes’s voice spoke from eleven years in the past.
“My name is Thomas Hayes. If this recording is being played, I’m probably dead.”
Sadie gripped the edge of the desk.
“I found a laundering network hidden inside the Hopewell Children’s Foundation,” Thomas continued. “They steal donations, inflate treatment costs, and push desperate families toward private lenders. Mick O’Shea collects the debts. Dr. Bell selects the families.”
Sadie covered her mouth.
Sam’s treatment hadn’t simply made them poor.
Someone had chosen them.
Thomas’s voice trembled.
“Anthony Costello promised to help me. I want to believe him, but there’s another man inside his family who knows everything.”
The tape clicked.
A noise sounded in the background.
A door opening.
Thomas whispered one final name.
“Gabriel.”
Sadie turned.
Gabriel was standing behind Victor with his gun drawn.
May you like
He aimed directly at Victor’s head.
“I’m sorry, boss,” he said. “But your father should’ve burned those tapes.”
