Chapter 2 - The Name She Was Afraid to Say
Dr. Fontineau arrived eleven minutes later.
By then Cersa was conscious again, although her face had lost nearly all its color.
Declan remained beside her while the doctor worked.
“You should leave,” Cersa whispered.
Declan looked at her.
“No.”
“This isn't your problem.”
“You came into my building bleeding.”
“That doesn't make it your problem.”
Declan leaned closer.
“It does now.”
Cersa stared at him.
There was something almost frightening about how calmly he said it.
She had heard stories about Declan Maher long before meeting him. In New Orleans, his name rarely appeared in newspapers, yet it appeared everywhere else—in whispered conversations between developers, contractors, politicians and businessmen.
He was the man who seemed to own nothing and somehow controlled everything.
Cersa had promised herself she would never become afraid of him.
Now she was beginning to understand that perhaps she should have been afraid of the people surrounding him instead.
When Fontineau finished treating her, Declan asked the question again.
“Who did this?”
Cersa looked toward the men standing around the room.
Remy.
Two security guards.
Fontineau.
Then her eyes returned to Declan.
“I don't know.”
Declan knew immediately that she was lying.
He dismissed everyone except Remy.
Only then did Cersa speak.
“The calculations aren't the important part.”
Declan's expression changed.
“What is?”
“The discrepancy.”
She pointed weakly toward the cabinet.
“The drive.”
Remy retrieved it.
Cersa explained.
She had been hired to examine structural reports connected to one of the largest redevelopment projects in the French Quarter. At first, the numbers appeared ordinary.
Then she found something impossible.
Materials supposedly purchased had never arrived.
Foundation reinforcements listed in invoices did not exist.
Inspection signatures had been duplicated.
Someone had been siphoning millions of dollars from the project.
But money wasn't what frightened her.
The missing structural work meant the building itself could eventually become unsafe.
Hundreds of people could be inside when that happened.
Declan's jaw tightened.
“Who signed the approvals?”
Cersa hesitated.
That hesitation told him everything.
“Someone connected to me.”
She nodded.
“Very closely.”
Declan stood.
“Name.”
“Declan—”
“Name.”
Cersa closed her eyes.
“Patrick Maher.”
Silence.
Even Remy reacted.
Patrick wasn't an employee.
He wasn't a contractor.
He was Declan's uncle.
The man who had raised him after his father died.
Declan stared at the thumb drive.
For the first time that night, Cersa saw something genuinely dangerous appear behind his eyes.
Then she grabbed his sleeve.
“There's more.”
Declan stopped.
“They knew I found it.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
She swallowed.
“But before they let me go, one of them said something.”
“What?”
Cersa looked directly into his eyes.
“He said, ‘Declan will never believe you over family.’”
Declan became perfectly still.
May you like
Because those words meant the attack had never really been about Cersa.
It had been a message intended for him.
