Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
LEO
The data spread across Leo’s borrowed desk like a battlefield map. Victim reports. Shell company registrations. Ley line coordinates. Buyout offer timelines. Property records dating back eighteen months.
He’d been at it for seven hours.
The Siren’s Rest had provided him with a private study off the main library—Avine’s doing, probably, though she’d said nothing when she’d handed him the key. Her knowing eyes reminded him uncomfortably of Theo’s warning at the brewery.
If you hurt her, I’ll kill you myself.
Leo pushed the thought away and refocused on the papers. The pattern was emerging, clearer with every data point he added. Not random surge effects. Not coincidental business failures. A systematic campaign designed to look like chaos while operating with surgical precision.
The map on his laptop showed Haven Shores’s ley line network—a web of magical energy that powered the town’s supernatural infrastructure. He’d overlaid it with the locations of every business that had experienced “surge-related” problems in the past six months.
Piprick’s Peculiar Provisions. May. Major ley line intersection.
Spellbound Lights. June. Secondary intersection, connected to the harbor ward anchor.
Honey & Hex Bakery. July. Minor intersection, but adjacent to two major nodes.
Three more harbor district businesses. August through October. All on ley line convergence points.
And now Moonrise Mixology. The largest ley line intersection in Haven Shores. The shop that sat directly on top of a nexus so powerful, it made ordinary potions extraordinary.
He pulled up the corporate filings he’d traced through three different shell companies. Coastal Acquisitions LLC. Haven Properties Group. Pacific Magical Holdings. Different names, different registration dates, different stated purposes.
Same parent company.
Sable Acquisitions.
Leo’s hands went still on the keyboard.
Sable.
The name crawled through his memory, dredging up things he’d spent five years trying to forget. A charming smile that never reached the eyes. Quarterly reports that didn’t quite add up. The sick certainty when he’d finally traced the missing funds.
Victor Sable. The junior partner who’d almost destroyed everything Leo had built.
Five years ago.
The conference room on the forty-seventh floor of Castellan Tower looked out over San Francisco’s Financial District. Fog pressed against the windows like a living thing, obscuring the city below. Leo sat at the head of the table, his laptop open to files that made his stomach turn.
Victor Sable sat across from him. Impeccable suit. Confident posture. That easy smile that had charmed clients and colleagues alike for three years.
“Leo.” Victor spread his hands, the gesture calculated to appear open and honest. “Whatever this is about, I’m sure we can work it out. We’re a team here.”
“A team.” Leo’s voice came out flat. Controlled. He’d spent two weeks confirming his suspicions before calling this meeting. Two weeks of hoping he was wrong. “Tell me about the Harrington account.”
A flicker lit behind Victor’s eyes. There and gone, faster than most people would catch. But Leo wasn’t most people. He’d learned to read micro-expressions from a father who lied with every breath.
“The Harrington account is performing exactly as projected—”
“The Harrington account is missing two hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.” Leo turned the laptop to face Victor. “Siphoned off in small increments over fourteen months. Routed through a series of dummy accounts that trace back to a shell company registered in your sister’s maiden name.”
Silence.
Victor’s smile didn’t waver. If anything, it sharpened. “That’s a serious accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation. It’s a fact.” Leo leaned back in his chair, watching the other man with the same detached assessment he’d use on any predator.
“The Mendez fund. The Sullivan trust. The Okonkwo portfolio. Shall I continue? Because I have records going back three years, Victor. Every account you’ve touched. ”
The smile finally cracked. Around the edges, revealing something harder underneath. Something that looked almost like amusement.
“You know, I always wondered.” Victor adjusted his cufflinks—left then right, a habit Leo had noted in dozens of meetings.
“Whether you were actually as smart as everyone said, or lucky. Your father certainly wasn’t smart.
Charismatic, sure. But dumb as a box of rocks when it came to seeing what was right in front of him. ”
The predator inside Leo stirred, a low growl building. He suppressed it. “This meeting is to inform you that your employment with Castellan Ventures is terminated, effective immediately. Your access credentials have been revoked. Security will escort you from the building.”
“You’re not pressing charges.” Not a question. Victor tilted his head, studying Leo with those clever golden-brown eyes. “Why?”
Because prosecution meant publicity. Meant investors questioning their faith in Castellan Ventures. Meant reopening every deal Victor had touched and explaining to clients that they’d been robbed by someone Leo had trusted.
Because it would take years. Cost millions. Damage the empire Leo had spent two decades building.
Because mercy was faster than justice, and Leo wanted the problem gone.
“Get out,” Leo said. “And, Victor? If I ever see your face again, I won’t be this generous.”
Victor stood, straightening his jacket with precise, unhurried movements.
“Generous.” He said the word like he was tasting it.
Finding it sour. “You know what your problem is, Castellan? You think mercy makes you better than people like me. Makes you noble.” He smiled again, and this time there was no charm in it at all.
“But mercy is weakness wearing a pretty mask. And weakness always gets exploited.”
He walked out. Leo never saw him again.
Until now.