She Found Who Was Robbing the Don’s Syndicate—Then He Claimed Her Before Everyone
Chapter 1
Why had someone risked killing a man over a sack of flour?
The question struck Elena Moretti as she crouched behind a stack of wooden crates in the back room of the riverside warehouse, one hand pressed over her mouth to keep herself from coughing. Dust scratched her throat. The smell of damp timber, spilled grain, and river mud hung heavily in the darkness.
Outside, two men were arguing.
“Three crates were counted at dawn.”
“And now there are only two.”
“They were taken before the carts arrived.”
“Then someone inside is stealing from the Don.”
Elena’s fingers tightened around the small brass ledger she had found beneath a loose floorboard.
She had not meant to discover anything.
She had come to the warehouse because the books she kept for the shipping house no longer balanced. For six weeks, flour, tobacco, salt, and imported cloth had disappeared from the accounts. Not enough at first to attract attention. A barrel here. A crate there. A few pounds of grain recorded twice.
But Elena noticed numbers.
Numbers did not lie.
People did.
She had followed the missing shipments through three ledgers, two warehouses, and a series of falsified receipts until she discovered something that made her blood run cold.
The thefts were not random.
Someone was deliberately stealing from the most feared trading syndicate in the colony.
And now Elena knew where the stolen goods were going.
A boot scraped against the floor outside.
She froze.
The warehouse door opened.
Light from a lantern stretched across the floorboards.
A man’s voice whispered, “Search every corner.”
Elena lowered herself behind the crates.
The brass ledger pressed painfully into her ribs.
If they found her, she knew exactly what would happen.
The men who served Don Matteo Belladonna did not forgive trespassers.
But Elena had not yet learned the most dangerous truth.
The thieves were not afraid of Don Matteo.
They were afraid that Elena would discover who was giving them orders.
