Chapter 5 - The Seal and the Serpent
Twenty minutes later, huddled near the folding tables of the laundromat between a row of industrial washers and a vending machine humming with a broken fluorescent tube, my phone vibrated.
I flipped the clamshell open. "Talk to me."
"Nora, you're playing with live ammunition," Leo said, his voice tight, clipped with genuine panic. "I pulled the digital registry archive. The seal on that amendment is registered to Vance's office, but the notary ID listed underneath belongs to a woman who retired three years ago and moved to Boca Raton. More than that—the filing date matches a batch of corporate shell transfers that were executed twenty-four hours before old man Harrison suffered his stroke."
"Arthur engineered the whole thing," I murmured, the pieces snapping together with the cold precision of a lock turning. "He didn't just overlook a fake. He manufactured it to clear the title before the heirs could contest the probate."
"If Arthur finds out you pulled this record, you won't even make the Metro section," Leo warned. "Get out of the city, Nora. Drop the phone in a storm drain and run."
"I can't run," I said quietly, looking down at the black business card resting in my palm. "The man who caught me already owns the sidewalk outside my apartment."
I ended the call, removed the SIM card from the burner, and snapped it cleanly in half before dropping the plastic pieces into the lint trap of a dryer.
The rain had started by the time I reached the address on the card. It wasn't a corporate skyscraper or a dingy side-street office. It was a limestone brownstone tucked into a quiet, tree-lined block off Park Avenue, unassuming from the outside except for the unmarked black town car idling at the curb and the single private security camera mounted discreetly above the iron gate.
I walked up the stone steps, my boots clicking against the wet slate. Before I could reach for the brass knocker, the heavy oak door swung open silently inward.
A man in a sharp charcoal vest—one of the bodyguards from the estate hall—stood in the dim foyer. He didn't smile, but he stepped aside, gesturing with an open palm toward the interior hallway.
"Mr. Vance isn't here," the guard said, his voice flat. "The boss is waiting for you in the study."
May you like
I stepped past him, the heavy door thudding shut behind me, sealing out the damp Manhattan afternoon and locking me inside a world I had spent my entire life trying to stay clear of.
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