~LAYLA~
I didn’t sleep. I just watched the sunrise paint the hospital room in shades of bruised purple and grey. The monitors kept beeping rhythmically beside Axel’s still form, letting me know he’s still there.
By 7:00 AM, I was back in the car, bathed in the hospital and now wearing a fresh change of clothes Tye had Sarah pick up for me.
Tye was driving, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Neither of us spoke during the drive, but the silence was tensed.
We pulled up to Helena’s address in thr suburbs and knocked.
We knocked on the door. Silence. Then a shuffle of feet. The door cracked open, revealing half of Helena’s face. She looked wrecked: swollen eyes, messy hair, wearing an oversized t-shirt that hung off one shoulder.
"Mrs. Layla?" she croaked, her eyes widening as she saw Tye standing behind me like a statue. "Is he...? Is Axel...?"
"He’s the same," I said, my voice steady despite the exhaustion pulling at my bones. "Can we come in? We need to talk."
She hesitated for only a moment before opening the door wide, stepping back to let us in.
"I... I was just making coffee," she stammered, wringing her hands as she sensed the tension radiating off Tye. "What’s going on?"
"Sit down," Tye said. It wasn’t a request.
Helena flinched and sat on the edge of her beige sofa, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
I remained standing, needing the height advantage. "I need you to be completely honest with us, Helena. Yesterday, did you come in contact with any package for Axel? Like a gift box?"
Her face paled, the colour draining so quickly I thought she might faint. "The gift box? Yes, I... I saw it."
"It didn’t go through the X-ray scanner," I said, watching her carefully. "The system was bypassed. And the biometric authorisation for that bypass... was yours."
Helena blinked rapidly, looking confused at first and then suddenly scared. "What? No. I mean... yes, I scanned it. But..."
"You authorised a bomb to enter the building," Tye said flatly, his hand resting near his belt.
"A bomb?" Helena repeated in shock, standing up from the sofa. "No! Oh my god, no! It was a gift! It was wrapped in the O’Brien corporate ribbon! I came in early, and the courier was waiting. He said it was a gift for Mr. O’Brien from the new Chinese partner or something. I... I knew it was for him!"
She looked frantically between us, as she took in rapid, shallow breaths.
"The scanner was acting up last week, giving false positives on metal clasps and belt buckles. I didn’t want to delay it. I just wanted it on his desk before he arrived so he’d have a good start to the morning. I was trying to be helpful!"
Her voice broke on the last word. She collapsed back onto the sofa, burying her face in her hands. "Oh God, no. I killed him. I was just trying to be of help, and I blew him up."
I looked at Tye. His posture had relaxed, just a fraction. Years of interrogations had taught him how to read people, and I could see the assessment in his eyes.
"She’s telling the truth," I said softly.
"How do you know?" Tye asked, though I suspected he’d already reached the same conclusion.
"Because Marco is smart," I said, moving to sit beside Helena. "He knew exactly how to package it so an overworked, loyal assistant would push it through. He weaponized her efficiency. He weaponized her desire to do a good job."
I sat down next to Helena, close enough that she could feel I wasn’t there to hurt her. "Helena. Look at me."
She raised her tear-streaked face, mascara smudged beneath her red-rimmed eyes.
"Axel is alive," I said firmly, letting each word sink in. "And you didn’t build that bomb. Marco Sinaloa did. You were a tool, nothing more. But right now, I need your help. I need to find a way to get Marco off our backs, and I need that evidence you found against your brother."
"I don’t understand," Helena whispered, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "What does Henry have to do with this?"
"Everything," I said. "Helena, the reason Marco sent that bomb... the reason he’s threatening us, is because someone stole ninety million dollars from his cartel. And right now, Marco thinks it was us. But it wasn’t. It was Henry and Charles. They’re framing us, and if we don’t find proof, none of us are safe. Not me, not Axel, not even you."
"But I... I don’t want to be the one to..." She trailed off, but I could see the doubt creeping into her expression.
"If you can hand it over, I promise you, and Tye and Jason; we will protect you with everything we have. But I need it now."
Helena stared at me for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
She stood up on shaky legs and walked to a bookshelf crowded with paperbacks and decorative candles. She pulled out a hollowed-out dictionary and retrieved a silver USB hard drive from inside.
"I copied everything from my phone in here," she said, handing it to me with trembling fingers. "I didn’t understand all of it. It’s a lot of numbers. Shell companies. Offshore accounts. Financial stuff I couldn’t make sense of."
"Tye," I said, turning to him. "Laptop."
Tye pulled his laptop from his bag, placed it on the coffee table, and plugged in the drive. We opened the files, and immediately I was staring at spreadsheets... dozens of them, filled with transactions and account numbers that meant nothing to me.
But Tye, who seem to have a background in forensic accounting... not that I’m surprised... started clicking through them fast, his eyes scanning the data like an expert.
"Here," Tye said after several minutes, pointing to a ledger with his index finger. "This is the ninety million dollars."
"It says ’Consulting Fees’," I noted, squinting at the screen.
"It’s not consulting fees," Tye said, his eyes narrowing as he scrolled down. "Look at the source of the funds. These inbound transfers... they are coming from ’Durango Logistics’, ’Sinaloa Imports’, ’Red Star Shipping’."
I froze, my blood turning to ice in my veins. "Sinaloa Imports. That’s Marco."
"Layla..." Tye looked up at me with wide eyes and a grim expression. "They were laundering money for the Cartel. Henry and Charles were washing Marco’s drug money. That’s what this was."
"And the ninety million?" I asked, though I was beginning to piece it together myself.
Tye clicked another file, his jaw tightening. "It looks like they got greedy. About six months ago, the ’washing’ stopped, but the money stayed in an account controlled by Henry. They didn’t transfer it back to the Cartel. They just kept it."
The realization hit me like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs.
"They stole it," I whispered. "Henry and Charles stole ninety million dollars from the Sinaloa Cartel, then falsified our records to make it seem like it was Eclipse Beauty. They buried it in our books so Marco would come after us instead of them."
It all made sense now.
Henry Porter had probably planned this out; he came into town and tried to get us to do business with him so he could probably cover his tracks. He had poked a sleeping dragon and then hidden behind us when it woke up breathing fire.
"He’s going to get us all killed," Helena whispered, staring at the screen in horror. "Henry stole from the Cartel? From actual drug dealers?"
"Yes," I said, a cold calm settling over me like a sheet of ice. This was it. This was the ammunition I needed.
I stood up, clutching the hard drive like it was made of pure gold.
"Helena, pack a bag. Right now. Tye is taking you to a safe house. You are the only witness to this theft, and if Henry knows you have this drive, I don’t know what he’s capable of."
"What about you?" Helena asked, standing up. "Where are you going?"
I looked at the laptop, then at the window where the city skyline loomed in the morning light.
"I have a phone call to make," I said. "Marco gave me forty-eight hours to pay him. I’m not going to pay him in cash."
Tye looked at me sharply, realising what I was thinking. "Layla... you’re going to trade him Henry."
"Henry wants to be a big shot," I said, walking toward the door. "He wants to play with the big boys and steal from cartels. I think it’s time I introduced him to his business partners. Let them handle their own mess."
I turned back to them, ready to give Tye more instructions but then, my phone rang.
I looked at the screen. It was the hospital.
My heart stopped.
"Hello?" I answered, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Mrs. O’Brien? This is Dr. Reeves. Your husband is awake."