“Here.” Konstantin handed me the tablet.
I accepted the device. The first thing I saw on the lit screen was the CCTV footage of a young lady retrieving the ledger from a shelf.
My eyebrows drew together, accentuating the scowl on my face.
The CCTV captured her every move, and I couldn’t help being suspicious. She glanced over her shoulder a few times before grabbing the book, as if to be sure no one was watching.
“We don’t know how much she knows,” Konstantin’s voice sliced through the silence.
“Who is she?” I asked without taking my eyes off the footage.
“Celine Hart,” he answered. “A quick background check revealed she’s a business student at the university.”
“Is she a part of Bogdan’s plan?”
“I doubt it,” he replied. “She’s clean. No criminal record.”
Clean doesn’t mean innocent.
I watched the footage again and realized that after studying the book, she put it back exactly where she found it. At this point, two things could be true. This Celine girl was either working with the enemy, or she was just some nosy girl who couldn’t mind her own damn business.
Whatever the case, she had put her hands on my private ledger. She shouldn’t have. To make matters worse, she chose to download all the information in the book into her puny brain.
Konstantin was right; there was no telling how much she already knew about us. The things on there could put me away for good if they got into the wrong hands. I had no idea what she was going to do with such information.
Ideally, she should be eliminated at once.
But there was something about her that urged the killer in me to take a chill pill. At least for now. When I paused the footage at the right angle, my heart skipped a beat for the first time in a long time.
She was pretty. Not the prettiest I’d seen. But enough to make my heart jump. Something no woman had managed to do in quite a while.
I studied the curious girl, taking mental notes of every detail I could catch. From the footage, she seemed to stand at about five-foot-three or so. She was curvy, with warm honey-toned skin and dark curls that fell past her shoulders.
Her wide eyes held a glint of curiosity and defiance. She was wearing a red silk blouse over a plain black skirt—a style I found simple yet elegant. The pearl around her neck caught the light, as did the bracelet on her wrist.
“What should we do with her?” Konstantin asked me.
I told myself that I couldn’t order her elimination because she was a woman. I had an unspoken rule never to kill women and children. However, deep down, I knew my hesitation was on a much more personal level. It had nothing to do with her gender but everything to do with her as an individual.
“Bring her in. Alive,” I answered, my gaze still fixed on the paused footage on my screen.
He gave a curt nod and walked away.
The fact that she had no criminal record didn’t necessarily mean that she was innocent. I’d lived long enough to know that no one was to be trusted in this world. No one.
That said, it was of utmost importance that I found out who she was and what she already knew.
Chapter 3 – Celine
Days passed, but the unease still clung to me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me. Maybe I was just being paranoid for nothing. It was possible that the figure outside my window almost every night was only a figment of my imagination.
After reading that ledger, it seemed like someone was constantly keeping an eye on me. I felt as though I was under some kind of secret surveillance, and it was starting to creep me out.
I couldn’t walk down the street without glancing over my shoulder. Even in class, my eyes were always wandering, scanning for new faces and anything out of the ordinary.
The fact that I had information that could put some really powerful people away for good meant that my life was in danger. I wasn’t sure who exactly owned that ledger and if they already knew about my involvement.
At the time I was studying that book, I refused to acknowledge how much trouble I was getting myself into. I should’ve listened to that voice that told me not to get involved. But I let my curiosity get the better of me.