I saw Rex’s shoulders slump. The tension drained out of his massive frame, replaced immediately by a hollow, sickening realization.
"Where's the cash?" Sal asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Victor said the thief hid the fifty grand in here. Where is it?"
I slowly stepped forward and looked inside. There was no money. There were no syndicate payoff bundles.
There was only a thick, black leather ledger book, a rusted hammer with dark, dried stains on the claw, and an old Polaroid photograph.
I reached into the box and pulled out the black ledger. I opened the cover. The pages were filled with columns of numbers, dates, and names. But it wasn't gym dues.
"These are sports bets," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I ran my finger down a column from 2004. "Losses. Massive losses. Ten thousand on a horse race. Fifteen thousand on a heavyweight title fight. Paid to someone named 'Sabatini'."
Rex flinched at the name. The color completely drained from his face. "Sabatini," he muttered. "That was the bookie Victor used to deal with before I started training here."
I flipped to the very last page of the ledger. There, written in neat, deliberate handwriting, was a final entry. It wasn't numbers. It was a note.
October 14, 2004.
Victor’s debt to Sabatini has hit fifty grand. They threatened to burn the gym. Tonight, Victor begged me to take a dive in the seventh round of tomorrow's fight to clear the debt. I told him no. I don’t throw fights. He was furious. He looked at me like a trapped animal. I'm hiding his ledger here in my locker. I'm taking this to the boxing commission tomorrow morning. If anything happens to me, Clara knows where to look.
- Leo Vance
I stared at the words, the tears finally blurring my vision. My father wasn't a thief. He hadn't abandoned us. He was an honorable man who had refused to compromise his integrity.
I handed the ledger to Rex. He read the entry. His hands, the size of dinner plates, began to tremble violently.
"He lied to me," Rex whispered, staring blankly at the rusted hammer sitting in the box. The murder weapon. "Victor lied to me my whole life. He killed Leo. He stole the gym's money to pay his own debts, and he blamed it on a dead man."
Sal and Gabe realized what they were looking at. The dynamic in the room shifted entirely. The three men weren't looking at me as an enemy anymore. They were looking at the collapse of everything they had trusted.
Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the locker room slammed shut with a deafening crash.
We all jumped. We heard the distinct, heavy sound of a thick chain being wrapped through the external door handles, followed by the heavy CLICK of a solid steel padlock snapping closed.
"Hey!" Sal yelled, running to the door and throwing his weight against it. It didn't budge an inch. "Hey! Who's out there?!"
The sound of liquid splashing against the bottom of the door seeped into the quiet room. A sharp, chemical smell immediately flooded the enclosed space.
Gasoline.
A tinny, distorted voice echoed down through the ceiling ventilation grate.
"I really wish you hadn't come back, Maya," Victor's voice floated into the room, laced with a terrifying, detached calm. "I gave you a chance to walk away."
Rex pounded his massive fists against the door. "Victor! Are you out of your mind?! Open this door!"
"I’m sorry, Rex," Victor’s voice replied, sounding genuinely sorrowful. "I loved you like a son. I really did. But I can't let her walk out of here with that ledger. I spent twenty years building a legacy. I’m not going to die in a prison cell because Leo Vance couldn't look the other way for one damn fight."
"You're burning us alive to cover your tracks?!" Rex roared, slamming his shoulder into the steel. The door rattled, but the external chain held firm.