Page 45 of Silken Chains
I thought I knew David, but he’s been playing me all along. I remember the first time he walked into Thompson Tales, that innocent look in his eyes.
How could someone so seemingly sweet screw me over like this?
“You son of a bitch,” I mutter, venom lacing my voice. I lash out at the pile of his things shoved into the corner—a mess of boxes he had told me never to touch. A black case skids across the floor, opening with a clatter, revealing its hollow insides—an empty gun case.
“Jesus Christ…” A sharp breath escapes me, my mind racing. “What the hell was he mixed up in?”
I slump against the wall. Eyes wide open.
Who the fuck did I marry?
All those late nights he came home, claiming he was entertaining clients.
What clients? What was he really doing?
My mind’s a whirlwind of questions with no damn answers. Every late night, every mysterious phone call—it all adds up to a picture I don’t want to see.
How could I have been so blind?
The taste of iron floods my mouth as I bite down on my lip. “What did you get me into, David?” I whisper to the empty room.
I need answers, and I need them now. I stand up, the urge to tear through every corner of this place overwhelming me. I start with his desk, pulling open drawers with reckless abandon, papers and pens flying. Nothing but old receipts and useless junk.
I move to his closet, yanking clothes off hangers, tossing shoes aside. Then, buried at the back, I find it—a briefcase I’ve never seen before. My hands tremble as I work the clasps, the metallic clicks far too loud in the silence of the room. The case opens with a sigh, revealing its contents. Inside, there are more papers, documents with names and numbers that make no sense.
Among the sea of papers, something catches my eye. “Is… that a diary?” I whisper to myself. Its cover is a deep color of old blood.
Picking it up, it feels like a relic in my hands, with edges that look like it’s worn from years of clandestine handling. I crack it open, the spine creaking with the sound of secrets long buried. The musty scent of old paper and ink hits me, the kind of smell that tells stories of backroom deals and hushed conversations.
“It’s… a ledger.” My hands tremble as I sift through the papers. My eyes strain to decipher the scrawled handwriting, names and figures dancing before me in an indecipherable waltz of crime and currency.
It’s a ledger, alright, but not for some mom-and-pop store—this is a meticulous record of illicit transactions.
“Vasiliev Corp… What the hell?” I mutter to myself. The entries are dizzying in their scope: accounts of smuggled contraband and lists of bribes paid out to silhouetted figures with code names. There are amounts that could buy small countries, all casually noted next to dates and cryptic references.
It’s David’s handwriting that stands out in the newer entries, unmistakable and bold. I trace the lines with a trembling finger, each word a nail in the coffin of the life I thought I knew.
He’s been cataloging everything—kilos of drugs, payoffs, and dirty money that’s flowed through this mysterious Vasiliev Corp.
My breath hitches in my throat as I stare at the ledger, its contents a barrage of criminal shorthand.
“Ivan… Ivan…?” I attempt, the name feeling alien. “Vasi..liev ?” I’m butchering the pronunciation, but there’s no one to correct me, just the silent accusation of ink on paper.
“Klinika… Some clinic thing,” I murmur, noticing a bunch of clinics getting weirdly big deliveries. Then there are these names, big shots in the government, scribbled next to crazy amounts of cash. “Half a million,” I whisper, “for what? Keeping quiet? Playing along?”
“Oh, my God.” Suddenly, it all clicks.
The pages are a catalog of corruption, and David’s meticulous entries grow clearer, his neat script cataloging each transaction. “Transport completion,” one entry reads, followed by a sum that could buy silence or worse.
There’s a note: “Assassination completion—one hundred and twenty thousand,” and a name that could headline any newspaper.
“Fuck me,” I breathe out, the reality hitting me hard. David wasn’t just hiding letters. He was hiding a whole other life.
I close the ledger with a snap, sinking back onto the floor, the briefcase splayed open in front of me. The reality of David’s world is hitting hard on me. This was no regular accounting book; it was a ledger of secrets and sins. The kind of book that could get a person killed.
“Is this who you really were all along?” I whisper, my hands trembling as I clutch the ledger.
What do I do with this? Go to the cops?
