Chapter 15 - The Exchange
Camila sent a location: the unfinished Vance tower on the waterfront. She wanted the original ledger and promised to release Rose, who was supposed to be resting in the hospital.
Grace called the police. Nicholas wanted to go with me. I refused.
"If she sees you, she'll run," I said. "We need her talking."
Omar placed a tracker inside a duplicate ledger and wired a small recorder beneath my jacket. Two investigators waited nearby.
The tower was dark except for work lights on the ground floor. Camila stood beside a concrete pillar in the same black coat she had worn outside Mrs. Alvarez's house.
"You came alone," she said.
"You said Rose was here."
"The ledger first."
I held it up. "Tell me why you tried to kill her."
Camila laughed once. "I didn't try to kill her. I tried to make her understand that some doors stay closed."
"You dragged an unconscious woman across my floor."
"She should have stayed out of things that weren't hers."
"Matthew is Nicholas's son. He is family."
Her face twisted. "He is a problem. Your brother should have died seven years ago."
The words landed between us.
I took one step closer. "So you knew he survived."
Camila's eyes widened. She realized what she had said.
A metal door slammed behind me. Two men stepped from the shadows. One grabbed my arms while the other took the ledger.
Camila leaned close.
"You should have married me quietly, Alex. Now you've made this expensive."
She nodded toward the stairwell.
May you like
"Take him downstairs."
The man who seized me smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave. I fought long enough to make him lose his grip once, but a second man struck the back of my knee. I hit the concrete hard. Camila watched without flinching. The woman I had planned to marry was now standing over me like a stranger waiting for a delivery.
