Chapter 80 Adeline
Adeline's POV
I stared at his outstretched hand. Clean hands, that’s what he had always promised me.
I slowly raised my eyes to meet his. He was looking back at me with the same unwavering devotion he always did, but for the first time since I met him, the man looking back at me felt like a stranger.
I forced the corners of my mouth to curve upward into a smile. "Ready," I lied before I placed my hand in his.
His fingers were warm and solid as it closed around mine, grounding me in a reality that I suddenly knew was entirely fake. The rest of the evening was an out-of-body experience for me.
We went to dinner at a bustling Italian place in the West Village. Zara talked about her upcoming trip to Paris. Percy laughed, poured the wine and kept his hand resting casually on the back of my chair, tracing soothing circles against my spine.
I played my part perfectly. I ate my pasta, smiled at the right moments, and teased him about his foreign taste in wine.
Growing up with a violent criminal for a father had taught me a lot of things, but above all, it taught me how to wear a mask. You never let the predator know you were on to him.
By the time Sunday night rolled around, the sheer exhaustion of pretending had settled deep into my bones.
Monday morning finally broke, and for the first time in a while, I wasn't excited for the beginning of a new work week. I stood in the bathroom, wrapping my silk robe tightly around my waist as I watched Percy adjust his tie in the mirror.
"You're sure you don't want to come in?" Percy asked for the nth time. His brow furrowed with genuine concern. "I can have Tiny come back for you if you want to sleep in a little longer."
"I’m sure," I said, maintaining my sick voice. "It’s just a migraine. I’ll review the integration files from here and come in tomorrow."
When he was done, he cupped my face gently and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
"Rest," he murmured, his dark eyes filled with nothing but care. "I'll keep my phone on loud. Call me if you need anything."
"I will. Have a good day at the office."
I stood in place until I was completely sure that he was gone. The moment the lock clicked into place, I shed the robe along with the sick, exhausted fiancée and let the ghost take over.
His home office looked exactly as it always did, clean and organized, truly reflective of a lawyer’s space, but I was a lawyer too, and I knew that there was always a paper trail to follow.
I sat down in his desk chair and opened my laptop. I connected to the Royal and Associates secure network, using the clearance access that he had probably forgotten he gave me a pass to at this point.
It was Volkov and the Red Hook terminal that stayed with me, but it was more than enough.
I found out that there was such a thing as the Akilov Crime Family and that they controlled everything in New York from the ports to the air. The Akilov family also had to launder their money through legitimate fronts, so if Volkov was running the terminal, there had to be a file attached to it.
For three hours, my fingers flew across the keyboard. The silence of the penthouse was not absolute because of my clicking of the keyboard keys.
My search was somewhat fruitful because I found a dummy corporation registered in another state as Apex Maritime Holdings.
I pulled the tax records and found that the listed CEO was a man named Alex Volkov.
My heart quickened in dread. I was pulling the thread, and the entire sweater was beginning to unravel. I traced the money flowing out of Apex Maritime to a maze of offshore shell companies, dozens of them, all funneling untraceable payroll to independent security contractors otherwise known as Assassins for the Akilov Syndicate.
I took a shaky breath, my eyes burning from staring at the glowing screen. The more I found out, the harder I prayed that this was all a misunderstanding and that Richard was the one running the family and the syndicate. I would even accept it as him simply turning a blind eye to his father's actions.
All the evidence I had seen so far was circumstantial at best; I needed something definitive, so I ran a search on the ownership record.
A single document popped up. It was a straight-to-the-point transfer of power, and it was filed around 2 a.m. on Friday night, the same night he told me he was finishing his corporate compliance. It was a total transfer of assets.
At the bottom of the page, signed in black ink, was the signature of the new mob boss, also known as the new king of the New York underworld. Percival Akilov.
I didn't know when I started crying. Not only did he not turn a blind eye to his father's syndicate, he had taken the throne. The man who held me while I cried over the violence of my past, the man who promised me a safe life in the light, had quietly become the head of a New York crime family, and he decided that without telling me at all.
I hit Print and watched the printer in the corner spit out twenty pages of damning, irrefutable proof of his new illegal power.
I gathered the pages, stapling them together, and returned to his room to wear my robe. I debated whether to be there or not when he came back, but I wanted to see his face when I confronted him with the evidence.
I knew he would come back early because he thought I wasn't feeling fine and that I hadn't reached out or responded to his text all day, so by 7, I was waiting for him in the living room.
A few minutes later, the elevator pinged and the door swung open.
"Adeline?" Percy’s deep voice carried through the dark penthouse.
I heard the rustle of his coat as he took it off, the heavy clink of his keys hitting the coffee table. He walked through the living room and stopped when he saw me sitting in the dark.
"Why are the lights off?" he asked in concern before reaching for the switch that flooded the room with light. He loosened his silk tie and offered me a tired but impossibly handsome smile. "How is your migraine, baby? Did you manage to get any sleep?"
He took a step toward me, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from my face. His hands stopped when I looked up at him with dead eyes.
"How is the Red Hook terminal, Percy?" I whispered, and he froze in his spot. I didn't give him a chance to react before I continued. "Did the offshore payroll clear?" I stood up, so he was forced to step back. He did, and I tossed the file onto the glass coffee table between us. "Or do you need to call Volkov to make sure the enforcement division is happy?"