'I Do' For Revenge
Chapter 193: Get Us Killed
CHAPTER 193: GET US KILLED
~LAYLA~
I didn ’t sleep. I ju st watched the sunrise pa int the hospital room in shades of bruised purple and grey. The monitors kep t 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 f or me.
Tye was driving, hi s eyes hidden behin d dark sunglasses. Neither of us spoke during the drive, but the si lence was tense d .
We pulled up to Helena’s address in thr su bur bs and knocked.
We knocked on the door. Sile nc e. 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-shir t that hung off one shoulder.
"Mrs. Lay la?" she croaked, her eyes widening as she saw Tye standing behind me like a statue. "Is he. ..? Is Axel...?"
"He’s the sam e," 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 befo re op en ing the door wide, stepping back to let us in.
"I. . . I was j ust making coffee," she sta mmered, wringing her hands as sh e sensed the tension radiating off Ty e. "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 h and s clasped tightl y in her lap.
I remaine d standing, needing the hei ght advan tage. "I need you to be completely honest with us, Helena. Yesterday, did y ou come in contact with any package for Axel? Like a gift box?"
Her face pale d, 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 tha t b yp ass... was yours."
Helena blinked rapidly, looking confused at first and then suddenly scared. "What? No. I mean... yes, I scanned it. B ut..."
"You authorised a bomb to enter the bui lding," Tye said flatly, his hand resting near his belt.
"A bomb?" Helena repe ated i n shock, standing up from t he sofa. "No! Oh my god , no! It was a gift! It was wrapped in the O’Brien corpor ate ribbon! I ca m e 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 franti cally between us, as she t ook in rapid, shallow breaths.
" Th e scanner was acting up last week, g iving false positives on meta l clasps and belt buckles. I didn’t want t o delay it. I just wanted it on his desk before he arrived so he’d have a good start to the m orning. I was trying to be he lpful!"
Her voice broke on the last word. She colla psed bac k 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 relax ed, 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 yo u know?" Tye asked, though I suspected he’d alr eady reached the same conclusion.
"Because Marco is smart," I said, mov ing to s it beside Helena. "He knew exactly how to packa ge 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 fee l 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 i s alive," I said firmly, letting each word sin k in. "And you didn’t build tha t b omb. M arco Sinaloa did. Y ou were a tool, nothing more. But right now, I need your help. I need to find a wa y to get M arco off our backs, and I need that evidence you found against your bro th er ."
"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 h is cartel. And righ t now , Marco thinks it was us. But it wasn’t. It was H enry and Charl es. They’re framing us, and if we don’t find proof, none of u s are safe. Not me, not Axel, not even you."
"But I... I don’t wan t to be the one to..." She trail ed off, but I could see the doubt creeping in to her e xpressi on.
"If you can hand it over, I promise yo u, and Tye and Jason; we will protect you with everything we hav e. Bu t I need it no w."
Helena stared at me for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
She stood up on shaky legs a nd walked to a bookshelf crowded with paperbac k s and decorative candles. She pulled out a hollowed-out dictiona ry and re trieved 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 s tuff I coul dn’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 th e drive. W e opened the file s, and immediately I was staring at spreadsheets... dozens of the m, filled with t ransactions and account numbers that meant nothin g to me.
But Tye, who seem to have a background in forensic accounting... not that I’m su rprised... started clicking through them fast, his eyes scanning the data like an exper t.
"Here," Tye said after several minutes, pointing to a ledger w ith his index fing er. "This is the ninety million dollars."
"It says ’Consulting Fees’," I noted, squintin g at the screen.
"It’s not consulting f ees," Tye said, his eyes narrowing as he scroll ed down. "Look at the source of the funds. These inbound transfe rs... they are c oming from ’Dur ango Logistics ’, ’Sinaloa Imports’, ’Red Star Shipping’."
I froze, my blood turning to ice in my veins. "Sinaloa Imports. That’s Mar co."
"Layla..." Tye looked up at me with wide eyes and a gr im expressio n. "They were laundering money for the Cartel. Henry and Charles were washing Marco’s drug money. That’s what th is was."
"And the ninet y million? " I asked, though I was beginning to piece it together myse lf.
Tye clicked another file, his jaw tightening. "It loo ks li ke they got gre edy. About six months ago, the ’washing’ stop ped, 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, steali ng the air from m y lungs.
"They s tole it," I whispered . "Henry and Charles stole ninety million dollars f rom the Sinaloa Cartel, th en falsified our records to make it seem like it was Eclipse Beauty. They buried it in our books so Marco would come afte r us instead of them."
It all made sense now.
Henry Port er ha d proba b ly planned this out; he came into town and tried to get us to do business with him so he could probably cover his tra cks. 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, star ing at the screen in horror. "Henry st ole 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 neede d.
I stood up, clutching the hard drive like it was made of pure gold.
"Helena, pack a bag. Righ t now. Tye is taking you to a safe house. You are t he 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 skylin e loomed in the mo rning 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 b ig 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 r ang.
I looke d at the screen. It was the hospital.
My heart stopped.
"Hello?" I answered, my voice barely above a w hisper.
"Mrs. O’Brien? This i s Dr. Reeves. Your husband is awake."