Chapter 5 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Rey read the words twelve times.
Daniel is alive.
Impossible.
Her father had been dead for twenty years.
She remembered the funeral.
Her mother's hand squeezing hers.
The closed casket.
The years afterward.
Lucian examined the metadata.
“Could Viktor have planted it?”
“Yes.”
“Would he?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To destabilize you.”
Rey stared at him.
“It's working.”
They traced the metadata to a server connected to a storage facility outside Vancouver.
Lucian wanted Rey to remain behind.
She refused.
“This is my father.”
“It may be a trap.”
“Then you're welcome to stay home.”
He looked at her.
“You've become increasingly difficult.”
“I was difficult before meeting you.”
“I've noticed.”
They went together.
Inside the facility, they found boxes.
Hundreds.
Financial records dating back decades.
Daniel Dunore's handwriting covered several.
Rey recognized it immediately.
Her hands trembled.
Then she found a cassette recorder.
Lucian located batteries.
The tape crackled.
A man's voice emerged.
Rey stopped breathing.
Her father.
“If Rey ever hears this…”
She covered her mouth.
“…then I failed to keep this away from her.”
Tears filled her eyes.
Daniel explained that Viktor had built a hidden financial network.
He had used Fibonacci sequences to track accounts because he believed ordinary auditors wouldn't recognize the pattern.
Daniel did.
He documented everything.
But the recording contained another revelation.
Lucian had tried to help him.
“If anything happens to me,” Daniel said, “Lucian Zarka is not responsible.”
Rey looked at Lucian.
His jaw tightened.
“He tried to get us out. I refused because I thought I could finish this.”
Rey cried silently.
Then Daniel said:
“Lucian, if you're hearing this too, I'm sorry.”
Lucian looked away.
The recording continued.
Daniel had created a master ledger.
Enough evidence to expose Viktor's entire network.
He hid it.
The clue?
1597.
Not the number itself.
The cufflink.
Rey looked at Lucian's wrist.
“Take it off.”
He did.
She examined the back.
Tiny markings.
Coordinates.
They led to a safe-deposit box.
Inside was Daniel's ledger.
Everything they needed.
But Daniel wasn't alive.
The metadata had been bait.
Strangely, Rey felt both devastated and relieved.
Her father was gone.
But he hadn't died believing Lucian betrayed him.
And Lucian hadn't killed him.
That night, Rey stood on the balcony of Lucian's apartment overlooking Vancouver.
“I hated you for six hours,” she said.
“I've been hated longer.”
“That isn't comforting.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
She smiled faintly.
Lucian joined her.
“Why did you keep the cufflink?”
“Your father was my friend.”
That surprised her.
“He trusted numbers more than people,” Lucian continued. “But when he trusted someone, he did so completely.”
“Sounds like him.”
“He talked about you.”
Rey's eyes filled again.
“What did he say?”
“That you counted stairs.”
She laughed through tears.
“I did.”
“And license plates.”
“Yes.”
“And once corrected a grocery receipt when you were seven.”
“Eight.”
Lucian looked at her.
Rey laughed harder.
For a moment, the danger disappeared.
Then Lucian touched her hand.
Gently.
Rey didn't pull away.
Their eyes met.
The forty-dollar dare suddenly seemed years ago.
“You should know something,” Lucian said.
“What?”
“Viktor believes you're leverage against me.”
“Am I?”
Lucian was silent.
Rey's heart beat harder.
Finally he said, “You are becoming inconveniently important.”
She smiled.
“That may be the least romantic sentence ever spoken.”
“I wasn't attempting romance.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because you'd be terrible at it.”
He leaned closer.
“Would I?”
Rey forgot how to breathe.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
The $84 million transfer had begun early.
Someone was executing it now.
Rey ran to the computer.
They had eleven minutes.
She examined the authorization.
Her signature.
Lucian's.
Both forged.
Then she noticed the destination.
Not Viktor's account.
A charitable foundation.
The Dunore Foundation.
Rey stared.
“I've never heard of this.”
Lucian had.
His face turned pale.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“The foundation was created twenty years ago.”
“By whom?”
“Your father.”
Rey felt another shock.
“But he died before—”
Lucian interrupted.
“No.”
He turned the screen toward her.
The incorporation documents had been signed three months after Daniel Dunore's supposed death.
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And the signature had been verified in person.
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