Page 7 of Veil of Ashes

I code in. Pull the files. No ceremony. No hesitation. Hesitation is for people who survive childhood with their hands clean.

The name Tony Rizzi blinks back at me. Alias list, two dozen entries deep. Shell corporations in three countries. More red flags than a communist parade.

“I thought I buried you, Rizzi,” I whisper. “But you’re still bleeding into everything I touch.”

Facial rec tags him at a warehouse in East Vegas. Same dead eyes, same slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair. He’s wearing a tan suit and talking to a guy I don’t recognize, but it’s his smug grin that punches me in the throat. The same one he wore the night my father disappeared. The night he died.

I scroll faster. There’s a wire transfer dated four months after Enzo’s supposed death. Rizzi. Offshore routing. Recipient: Veritas Holdings.

I stop.

Veritas.

That name isn’t random.

It was my mother’s.

Her maiden name. Her signature on every piece of pottery she ever fired. The same word she etched into the back of the ceramic pendant I keep hung on my neck at all times. It’s there now—off-white, cracked from time and heat. A tiny curve of her in a world that burned everything else away.

I touch it.

I run my thumb over the etched letters. Veritas. Truth.

“That’s what she named her art,” I whisper. “That’s what he bought with her blood.”

Rizzi didn’t just steal. He mocked us. Branded a shell company with her name and funneled blood money through it. Bought buildings. Paid brokers. Signed contracts using a name I thought was buried in the same box as her wedding band.

I don’t realize I’m crying until the keys blur.

I wipe my eyes. Shake my head. Keep working.

New transfers pop up. Five layers deep. Delaware. Panama. Dubai. All connecting back to Veritas. And through Veritas… to Enzo.

His name’s still on one of the account holders. Not closed. Not archived. Active.

If Enzo’s name is still in these ledgers, he’s not just a ghost.

He’s leverage.

Or bait.

I sit back and light another cigarette. My fingers tremble when I hold it to my lips.

My father never deserved forgiveness. But he didn’t deserve to become a pawn, either. Not like this. Not handed over to a man like Rizzi, who carved futures out of flesh and paid his dues in favors soaked with blood.

My phone buzzes. I ignore it.

The computer beeps—decryption complete. Another tier is unlocked on Kieran’s flash drive. New folders. One’s labeled Rosetti – off books. Another: Velvet Armory. My heart stops on the last.

Sylvara / Asset Watch.

I open it.

Surveillance logs. My name. My face. Dates.

He knew more than he said.

Of course he did.

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