Chapter 4 - Lucas’s Name in the Ledger
Mia entered Nathan’s office only because he summoned her.
A tray of coffee sat beside a stack of financial files.
Nathan took a call and stepped into the hallway.
Mia placed the cup on his desk.
Then she saw it.
A faded audit sheet partially hidden beneath a leather folder.
L. BENNETT — UNAUTHORIZED REVIEW.
Her husband’s name.
Mia’s hand stopped.
Lucas had died two weeks after leaving Vale Maritime.
Police said he lost control of his car on a wet road.
Lucas had rarely driven fast.
He had also been frightened during his final days.
He checked windows repeatedly.
He moved documents between hiding places.
The night before his death, he gave Mia the silver bird pendant.
“Never sell this,” he told her.
“Why?”
“It belonged to someone who tried to do the right thing.”
Mia assumed grief had made his words strange.
Now her husband’s initials sat inside Nathan’s restricted ledger.
She lifted the page just enough to read the line below.
Discovered offshore transfers. Access terminated by N. Shaw.
Nathan Shaw.
The office door opened.
Mia released the paper.
Nathan entered.
“Did you find something interesting?”
“No.”
He walked behind the desk and noticed the shifted folder.
“Your husband was curious too.”
Mia’s blood went cold.
“You said you didn’t remember him.”
“I remember everyone who creates inconvenience.”
“What happened to Lucas?”
Nathan smiled.
“A car accident.”
Mia held his gaze.
“That wasn’t my question.”
For one second, his pleasant expression disappeared.
Then Claire entered.
She looked from Mia to the ledger.
“Why is the maid reading confidential documents?”
“I wasn’t.”
Nathan closed the folder.
“She was delivering coffee.”
Mia left without showing fear.
Inside the pantry, she wrote everything she remembered on the back of a grocery list.
That evening, she searched old news reports about Vale Maritime.
Several shell companies mentioned in Lucas’s notebook were connected to Nathan.
Money had moved through them for years.
The transfers stopped briefly after Lucas died.
Then they resumed.
Mia began wondering whether her husband’s death had been caused by more than rain.
She did not tell Dominic.
A man like Dominic commanded loyalty, but Nathan had served him since childhood.
Mia needed proof strong enough to survive family allegiance.
May you like
She returned to Nathan’s office three nights later with the cracked phone hidden in her apron.
👉 The photograph Mia captured that night showed Nathan transferring Vale assets to a company secretly owned by Claire.
