Chapter 6 - Dominic’s Second Betrayal
The fake sale announcement was scheduled for Friday morning.
By Thursday night, somebody inside Rossi Logistics had already prepared the paperwork.
That was not supposed to happen.
Dominic had told only four people that he was considering selling the Calumet property: Nico, Adrian, Victor, and the company’s outside attorney, Rachel Stein. Rachel had been instructed to draft nothing. Nico knew the sale was bait. Adrian and Victor believed it was real.
Yet at 7:40 p.m., a courier arrived with a confidential preliminary agreement from North Meridian Freight Properties.
The document was thirty-eight pages long.
It included a purchase price Dominic had never discussed.
It included a closing schedule.
It even included language granting the buyer temporary management authority over the terminal before the sale was complete.
Dominic read that paragraph twice.
Then he called Adrian.
The CFO arrived nine minutes later.
“Where did this come from?” Dominic asked.
Adrian looked at the document and frowned convincingly.
“North Meridian, apparently.”
“Why do they think I’m selling?”
“You told us you were reconsidering.”
“I told you I was considering it.”
Adrian sat across from him.
“Maybe Victor called them.”
Dominic’s eyes stayed on Adrian.
“Why would Victor have their contact?”
“He was involved in the original discussions.”
“No. You were.”
Adrian paused.
Only for a fraction of a second.
Then he smiled.
“Dominic, I manage the financial side of the business. Of course I’ve spoken with them.”
“Without me?”
“Preliminary conversations.”
“About my property.”
“Our property.”
The word hung in the room.
Adrian corrected himself quickly.
“The company’s property.”
Dominic leaned back.
Adrian Cole had been beside him for eleven years.
He had joined after the death of Dominic’s father, when lenders were nervous and vendors demanded cash. Adrian had reorganized debt, negotiated insurance, and once spent three straight days in the office during a labor dispute.
Dominic trusted him.
Not the way he trusted Bee.
But close.
That made what happened next feel like a second betrayal, even before he knew the truth.
Dominic slid the agreement across the desk.
“Read section twelve.”
Adrian did.
His expression did not change.
“What about it?”
“Temporary management authority.”
“Standard transition language.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“For an asset transfer like this—”
“Don’t.”
Adrian stopped.
Dominic’s voice remained calm.
“Don’t explain contracts to me like I haven’t signed thousands of them.”
Adrian closed the document.
“What are you asking?”
“I’m asking why North Meridian thinks it can control a Rossi terminal before paying for it.”
Adrian looked at him for a long moment.
“Maybe they think you’re desperate.”
“Am I?”
“The company is under pressure.”
“Because somebody has been creating pressure.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“Is this about Beatrice?”
Dominic did not answer.
Adrian stood.
“She admitted what she did.”
“Yes.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Reading a contract.”
“No. You’re looking for a way to make her innocent.”
Dominic’s eyes turned cold.
“Sit down.”
Adrian did not.
“You always did that with her.”
“Did what?”
“Made exceptions.”
Dominic studied him.
Adrian laughed once without humor.
“She challenged me in meetings. Went around me on audits. Questioned vendor payments I had already approved. And every time, you called it diligence.”
“Because it was.”
“She undermined me.”
“She found mistakes.”
Adrian’s expression sharpened.
“There. That.”
Dominic said nothing.
“You trusted her judgment more than mine.”
“Was I wrong?”
Adrian froze.
It was not a confession.
But it was the first crack.
Dominic saw it.
Adrian reached for his jacket.
“I’m done with this conversation.”
“No, you’re not.”
Dominic pressed a button on his desk.
Nico entered.
Adrian stopped.
“What is this?”
“Security review.”
“You’re detaining me?”
“No.”
Dominic nodded toward the door.
“You’re free to leave.”
Adrian looked from him to Nico.
“But your building access is suspended. Your company devices stay here.”
Adrian’s face went pale with anger.
“You can’t do this.”
“I just did.”
“You think I’m the leak?”
“I think you’re going home for the night.”
Adrian stared at him.
Then his fear disappeared behind a cold smile Dominic had never seen before.
“You’re making a mistake.”
Dominic’s expression did not move.
“I’ve made several this week.”
Adrian placed his phone and badge on the desk.
The gesture echoed Bee so perfectly that Dominic felt it in his chest.
Unlike Bee, Adrian did not look heartbroken.
He looked insulted.
Nico escorted him out.
Thirty minutes later, the security team imaged Adrian’s work computer.
At 9:06 p.m., Nico found a hidden financial model showing the consequences of a Calumet sale.
Nothing illegal.
At 9:22, he found deleted communications with North Meridian’s attorneys.
Still explainable.
At 9:47, he found a spreadsheet titled PROJECT MERIDIAN.
The document contained a list of Rossi assets, debt triggers, client vulnerabilities, and personnel categorized by one-word descriptions.
ELENA — LOYAL.
NICO — RISK.
VICTOR — USEFUL.
BEATRICE — REMOVE.
DOMINIC — ISOLATE.
Nico stared at the screen.
Then he called Dominic into the security room.
Dominic read the spreadsheet without speaking.
At the bottom was a timeline.
Stage One: destabilize client confidence.
Stage Two: force asset sale.
Stage Three: trigger debt covenant review.
Stage Four: management transition.
Stage Five: Rossi exit.
Dominic’s eyes stopped on the last phrase.
Rossi exit.
“What does that mean?” Nico asked.
Dominic’s voice was flat.
“It means me.”
A file attachment sat beside the spreadsheet.
Nico opened it.
It contained a draft employment agreement between Adrian Cole and North Meridian Freight Properties.
Title: Chief Executive Officer.
Effective upon completion of acquisition.
Nico leaned back.
“Well.”
Dominic stared at the screen.
“Adrian wasn’t working for Lorenzo because he hated me.”
“No.”
“He was buying my chair.”
Nico looked at the list again.
“Then what is Victor?”
Dominic read the single word beside his uncle’s name.
Useful.
“That’s what worries me.”
At the bakery apartment, Bee received a photograph of the spreadsheet through Mara’s secure contact chain.
She read it once.
Then again.
BEATRICE — REMOVE.
She felt surprisingly little at seeing her name reduced to a problem.
What hurt was the line above it.
VICTOR — USEFUL.
Mara watched her.
“You thought Victor was the architect.”
“I thought he might be.”
“Looks more like a tool.”
“Tools can still know what they’re doing.”
Bee zoomed in on the file metadata visible in the photograph.
Creation date: fourteen months earlier.
Author: ACole.
Last modified by: VSRAdmin.
Bee sat up straighter.
“There.”
Mara leaned closer.
“VSR again.”
“Not Victor necessarily.”
“What else could it mean?”
“An administrator account.”
“Named after Victor.”
“Yes, but Adrian built the model. Someone using VSR modified it later.”
Mara folded her arms.
“So Adrian planned the acquisition and Victor helped?”
“Maybe.”
Bee’s eyes moved down the document.
There was another tab visible at the bottom of the spreadsheet screenshot.
WITNESS PAYMENTS.
“Mara.”
“I see it.”
Bee called Dominic through an intermediary line.
He answered immediately.
“Bee?”
Hearing his voice nearly broke her concentration.
“Yes.”
A pause.
Neither knew what to say first.
Dominic chose business because business was safer.
“We found Adrian’s file.”
“I saw it.”
“He’s suspended.”
“Don’t arrest him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Don’t confront Victor either.”
“I already did.”
Bee closed her eyes.
“Of course you did.”
“I was subtle.”
From somewhere near Dominic, Nico said, “He was not.”
For one second Bee smiled.
Then she returned to the screenshot.
“There’s a witness-payment tab.”
“We noticed.”
“I think Adrian paid people to create the incidents that damaged the company.”
“Can we prove it?”
“Not from this.”
“What do you need?”
“Someone on the list.”
Dominic was quiet.
Bee continued.
“Find the underlying file. There should be names, dates, accounts.”
“Nico is pulling it now.”
“I need one name before Lorenzo knows Adrian is exposed.”
Dominic looked through the glass wall of the security room.
“Adrian left twenty minutes ago.”
Bee’s eyes widened.
“You let him leave?”
“I had no cause to hold him.”
“You didn’t need cause. You needed time.”
“Bee—”
“Dominic, he knows you’re suspicious now. He’ll call Lorenzo.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“I know.”
There was no defensiveness in his voice.
That stopped her.
He sounded tired.
Not physically.
Older.
Bee softened.
“Then move fast.”
Nico spoke in the background.
“Got it.”
Dominic returned to the phone.
“Nico opened the tab.”
“Read me the first three names.”
Paper rustled.
Dominic read them.
Bee knew none.
Then the fourth.
“Celia Ruiz.”
Bee went still.
Mara saw her face.
“You know her?” Dominic asked.
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
Bee stood.
“The night supervisor at Calumet.”
“Still employed?”
“No. She quit six months ago.”
“Why?”
“She said her mother was sick.”
Bee remembered Celia’s farewell. No party. No speeches. Just a hug beside the loading dock and a promise to visit.
Celia had cried.
At the time Bee thought it was grief over leaving.
Now she wondered if it had been fear.
“Do you know where she is?” Dominic asked.
Bee looked at Mara.
“I know where she used to eat after night shift.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Do not go alone.”
Bee almost laughed.
“You fired me. You don’t get to assign security.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
A pause.
Then Dominic said, more quietly, “Please.”
Bee closed her eyes.
That word was harder to resist than any order he had ever given.
“Mara’s with me.”
“Call me when you find her.”
“I will.”
Bee started to hang up.
“Bee.”
She stopped.
Dominic’s voice was low.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked toward the rainy bakery window.
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
Bee swallowed.
“We stay alive first.”
“And after?”
She hesitated.
“After, you can apologize properly.”
The line went quiet.
Then Dominic said, “Deal.”
Bee ended the call.
Mara handed her a coat.
“Where does Celia eat?”
Bee looked at the address she had written from memory.
“A twenty-four-hour diner on Archer.”
Mara checked the small clock above the stove.
“Think she’ll be there?”
“No.”
“Then why go?”
Bee slipped on the coat.
“Because people who are afraid change where they sleep before they change where they feel safe.”
“And if Lorenzo already found her?”
May you like
Bee opened the apartment door.
“Then we find out whether Adrian’s second betrayal cost us our first real witness.”
