Chapter 28
Chapter 28: The Inheritance of Dust
The search for Preston’s duplicate ledger led them to a place Harper had swore she would never visit again—the old, abandoned Whitcomb summer estate in Geneva, Wisconsin. The property had been seized by the state, its grand gardens overgrown with weeds, its windows boarded up like a rotting corpse on the lakefront.
Enzo and Harper arrived at midnight, accompanied only by Marco and Bruno. The air inside the dark, cavernous mansion smelled of mold and old paper, a suffocating monument to a ruined dynasty.
"He used to keep his private collection in the floorboards of the wine cellar," Harper said, her flashlight beam cutting through the cobwebs as they descended the stone steps. "He told me that if the world ever turned on him, he would burn the whole state down with the names in this room."
They found the hidden compartment behind a row of rusted vintage Bordeaux. Enzo pried the stone slab away with a crowbar, revealing a small, steel lockbox. Inside lay a single, leather-bound book, its pages yellowed with age but its handwriting unmistakably Preston’s.
As Harper turned the pages, her eyes widened. It wasn't just Vincent Moretti’s names in the ledger. The book contained a comprehensive list of every high-society family in Chicago, New York, and Washington who had actively paid Preston to cover up their own domestic crimes—abuse, assault, embezzlement.
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"My god," Harper whispered, her hands shaking slightly as she realized the true depth of her father’s power. "He wasn't just a monster, Enzo. He was the keeper of everyone else's monsters. This isn't just a weapon against Moretti. This is a bomb that could destroy the entire social hierarchy of the East Coast."
Before Enzo could take the book, the sound of multiple footsteps echoed from the stone stairs behind them. A dozen red laser dots painted the stone walls of the cellar, locking onto Enzo’s chest and Harper’s head.
