Guarding Raven

The Blood Stained Ledger

Zavior leaned against the peeling wallpaper of the safe house, his expression unreadable as he performed a practiced, rhythmic check of his weapon. The heavy metallic slide of the handgun moved with a sharp, lethal clack-hiss under his thumb, a sound of mechanical perfection that served as a grim reminder that he was the only shield Raven had left. "You aren't going anywhere without me," she said, her voice echoing in the small cabin.

Zavior didn't even look up from his gear. He was methodically loading a magazine, the click-click-click of the brass rounds sounding like a countdown. "This isn't a gallery opening, Raven. It’s a recovery mission. You’ll be a liability." "A liability? I’m the only one who knows where that floorboard is!" she lied. She didn't actually know, but she knew her father’s patterns. He hid things in threes—left, right, and center. "My father was obsessed with the Golden Ratio. If he hid a ledger in that office, it’s not just 'under a floorboard.' It’s under the specific board that aligns with the northern light from the window. You’ll spend hours tearing that place apart. I can find it in five minutes."

Zavior stopped. He looked at her, his eyes tracking the stubborn set of her jaw. He looked like he wanted to argue—like he wanted to pick her up and lock herf in the bathroom for her own safety. "Fine," he growled. "But you wear the vest. And you stay in the shadows. If I tell you to run, you don't look back. You don't scream for me. You just run until you hit the main road. Do you understand?" Raven swallowed hard. "I understand."

The drive back into the city was a blur of rain and neon lights. Zavior drove a blacked-out SUV that felt more like a tank than a car. He didn't play the radio. He just watched the mirrors, his hands steady on the wheel, while Raven tried to keep her heart from leaping out of her chest. They reached the studio through the back alley, the smell of wet garbage and damp brick thick in the air. The yellow police tape across the front door fluttered in the wind, a grim reminder that her life had been dismantled yesterday.

"Stay behind me," Zavior whispered as they slipped through the service entrance. The studio was dark, the shadows of her sculptures looking like twisted giants in the gloom. Raven's heart ached seeing the cerulean paint still smeared across the floor from the fight earlier. It felt like a lifetime ago. They reached her father's office. It was a mess—Vane’s men had clearly been back. Books were pulled off shelves, and the desk had been overturned. "They didn't find it," Zavior noted, his flashlight cutting through the dark.

Raven walked to the center of the room, measuring the distance from the window with her eyes. One, two, three steps. She knelt, her fingers searching for the slight unevenness in the oak. "Here," she whispered. She used a palette knife she'd grabbed from the supply rack to pry up the board. Her breath hitched. Tucked into a velvet-lined pocket in the subfloor was a small, leather-bound book. It was old-fashioned, the kind of thing a man who didn't trust computers would use to keep his darkest secrets.

But as she pulled it out, her fingers came away sticky. "Zavior," she said, my voice trembling. "There’s... there’s blood on it."

Zavior was at her side in a second, his flashlight illuminating the dark red stains on the leather. "It’s dry. Your father must have been holding this when... well, when it happened." Raven opened the cover. The first few pages were filled with her father’s familiar, elegant handwriting. Lists of paintings, dates, and prices. But as she flipped toward the back, the writing changed. It became frantic. Scrawled.

'They aren't buying the art,' one note read. 'They’re buying the silence. The gallery is a front for a wash cycle. V. knows. If I stop, she's next.' "She's next," Raven whispered, the words catching in her throat. "He was talking about me. He was trying to protect me." "Look at the last entry," Zavior commanded, leaning over her shoulder. On the very last page, a single name was written in bold, dark ink, circled so many times the paper had nearly torn:

PROJECT CANDY CANE.

Raven froze. Her mind raced back to the Christmas tree in the corner of the studio—the one she’d been decorating when he told her he had a "big surprise" for her career. "That’s not a project name," she said, her eyes wide. "That’s what he called my trust fund. But why would he—" The sudden, chilling mechanical grind of a hammer being c****d back echoed through the narrow hallway, a sound so sharp it seemed to slice through the humid air. The heavy, definitive click resonated behind them with lethal finality, signaling that the safety was off and the time for talking had officially ended.

"Because the trust fund doesn't exist, Raven," a voice said from the doorway. It wasn't Arthur Vane. It was a woman’s voice—smooth, cold, and familiar. Raven turned, her heart stopping. Standing there with a silenced pistol pointed directly at Zavior’s chest was her father’s attorney. The woman who had been like an aunt to her. "Eleanor?" she gasped. "Drop the book, darling," Eleanor said with a sad, thin smile. "And Mr. Kane? If you move your hand an inch closer to that holster, I’ll put a bullet in the girl's head before you can blink. I’ve spent twenty years cleaning up her father's messes. I'm not letting a bodyguard ruin the retirement I’ve earned."

Raven's lungs felt tight, the air in the office suddenly tasting like dust and betrayal. She looked at Eleanor, searching for the woman who had brought her hot chocolate when she was a kid, the one who had handled her father's most private documents with such care.

Was it all an act? Every birthday card, every "don't worry, Raven" phone call—was she just monitoring her investment? "You were at the funeral, Eleanor," She said, her voice rising. "You cried. I saw the tears hit the silk of your scarf. Was that fake, too? Or were you just mourning the fact that he died before you could get the ledger?"

Eleanor’s expression didn't change, but her grip on the pistol was rock solid. "I was mourning a man who didn't know when to stop digging, Raven. Your father was a brilliant artist, but he was a terrible businessman. He thought he could play both sides—keep the gallery clean while the 'Project Candy Cane' accounts were being used to move money for people you don't want to meet. I warned him. I told him to just take his cut and stay in the studio."

"And the five million?" Zavior asked, his voice a low, dangerous hum. He hadn't moved a muscle, but Raven could feel the tension vibrating off him. He was like a coiled spring waiting for the exact millisecond Eleanor’s focus wavered. "You moved it to the Caymans." "I moved it to safety," Eleanor corrected. "And now, I'm going to move the ledger to a shredder. Raven, honey, just slide the book toward me. If you do, I’ll let Mr. Kane take you back to that cabin. You can live out your life in the woods, painting trees, and we can all pretend this never happened."

Raven looked down at the blood-stained leather in her hands. She looked at the name of her trust fund—her father's last attempt to save her—circled in ink. If she gave her this book, she was giving her father's murder freedom. She was letting her win. "He didn't call it 'Project Candy Cane' because of the money, did he?" Raven whispered, a cold realization washing over her. "He called it that because of the Christmas I was seven. The year we were so broke he couldn't buy presents, so he made 'art' out of the candy canes from the tree. It was about making something out of nothing. It was about truth."

Raven looked Eleanor right in her cold, calculating eyes. "You aren't getting the book."