Crimson Ledger

Detective Alina Voss never liked Mondays, but this one was different. The morning fog hadn’t lifted, the coffee tasted like burnt regret, and someone had left a body in the vault of Blackridge Bank.

It was Harold Crane—the bank’s chief financial officer—found neatly posed in a leather chair, a red journal clutched in his hands. The crimson ledger, as it would soon be called, didn’t hold account numbers or audits. It held names. Dates. Payments. Secrets.

Alina stood in the vault doorway, squinting at the body.

"No forced entry," said Officer Levin, flipping through the preliminary report. "Security system shows no breach. Cameras went dead between 2:07 and 2:12 a.m."

She nodded. “Too precise for a random act.”

Crane’s death wasn’t just about money. Blackridge Bank had long been rumored to launder funds for criminal syndicates, but no one had ever proven it. Until now—maybe.

The crimson ledger revealed payments to shell corporations, hush money to politicians, and, chillingly, bribes to certain members of law enforcement. Alina’s name wasn’t in the book, but she recognized three that were.

She took the journal home that night, locking it in her safe and sleeping with her service pistol under the pillow.

By morning, Officer Levin was missing. By noon, Internal Affairs showed up, asking questions she didn't like. Someone knew she had the ledger.

That night, her apartment was broken into. The safe was untouched, but someone had gone through her drawers, her clothes, even her food cabinets. A message written in lipstick on her mirror read: Give it back.

Alina went underground. She knew the playbook from watching too many cops fold when things got dirty. She changed phones, slept in her car, and used old contacts from her vice days. That’s when she found him—Mason Redd, a former Blackridge enforcer turned informant, now running a pawn shop in Southbridge.

“You’ve got no idea what that book really is,” he said, eyes scanning the empty store like ghosts haunted the shelves.

“Then enlighten me.”

“That ledger? It’s not just a record. It’s a kill list.”

She stiffened.

“Crane made it as insurance. Every time someone crossed the syndicate, or got too greedy, he’d add them. Most of them are already dead. The rest?” He pointed at the journal she clutched in her coat. “They’re next. And if you’re holding it, so are you.”

Alina left without saying goodbye.

Over the next two days, she sent copies of the ledger to four news outlets. Two ignored her. One got raided. The fourth posted a redacted version online. Suddenly, names were public. Men in suits went quiet. Lawyers started resigning. A city began to tremble.

That night, they came for her.

Three black SUVs. Silencers. Precision.

But she was ready.

Using Mason’s help, she staged her death—charred remains in a burned-out motel. Dental records were forged. The city mourned a hero gone too soon.

Weeks later, in a quiet town by the ocean, a woman with short black hair and a false ID watched the news from a beachside café. The camera showed one of the arrested bank executives being led in handcuffs.

Justice, however slow and brutal, was still justice.

She sipped her coffee, cracked open a newspaper, and smiled.

The ledger now lay at the bottom of the ocean in a weighted lockbox. The names were known. The secrets were out.

And Alina Voss had vanished—just another ghost in a city of shadows.