RAY MARTIN CODE

Chapter 9 – The Blood Ledger

Ray’s cursor blinked against the darkness of his apartment, It was almost midnight. The only light came from his laptop, casting his face in ghostly blue.

The decrypted file had been sitting there for the past ten minutes, He had read it twice already, And still, his brain refused to accept it.

The words were clean, clinical, the kind of precision you’d expect from corporate archives, but what they described made his stomach twist.

The Blood Ledger... A financial record so vast and so detailed that it didn’t just track Vance Dynamics’ legitimate earnings… it documented decades of off-the-books deals, bribery trails, and contracts that could get men killed.

There were names in the margins. Names he recognized, Judges. Ministers. CEOs, And in the middle of it, buried halfway down the list, a name Ray had never expected to see: M. R. Ellis.

His mentor, Ella’s father, The man who had given him a job when no one else would, Ray’s mouth went dry.

If Ellis was in this ledger, it meant he wasn’t just a victim of the boardroom war, he was part of it.

A distant rumble broke his concentration. At first, he thought it was thunder, Then came the hum of an engine. Ray’s head snapped toward the window. Across the street, a black SUV slowed just enough for him to see the driver’s silhouette.

The vehicle didn’t stop. It rolled past… but in the reflection of a rain-slick sign, Ray caught the faint red glow of a rear camera pointed directly at his building, He didn’t have time to think.

He shoved the laptop into his backpack, grabbed the small external drive still warm from decrypting, and bolted for the fire escape.

The icy metal ladder burned his palms, but adrenaline drowned the pain. He climbed down three floors and dropped the rest, landing hard on the alley pavement.

A voice hissed from the shadows. “Ray.”

He froze, A figure stepped forward, Not the man from the other night. This one was shorter, leaner, wearing a rain-soaked hoodie pulled low over his face. “You don’t know me,” the man said quickly, “but I know what you found. And I know you’re about to die if you don’t leave right now.”

Ray didn’t move. “Who sent you?”

The man shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Just”

The crack of a rifle split the air, The hooded man jerked backward, arms flailing, a spray of blood catching the dim alley light. Ray hit the ground before he realized he’d moved, the cold grit biting into his palms.

Another shot. This one ricocheted off the fire escape above him, Ray didn’t wait for a third. He crawled toward the far end of the alley, keeping low, heart hammering, Somewhere above, he could hear boots pounding across a rooftop. Whoever was shooting was moving fast.

When Ray burst out onto the main street, the SUV from before was already at the corner. Its headlights flared, and the tires screamed as it accelerated toward him.

Ray ran. His backpack slammed against his spine with every step, the weight of the drive feeling like it could tear through the fabric, He cut down another side street, then another, doubling back toward the industrial district.

The SUV’s engine roared behind him, Ray spotted an old service tunnel entrance, half-hidden behind a chain-link fence. The padlock was rusted. He didn’t hesitate, slamming his heel against it until the chain gave way.

Inside, the tunnel stank of oil and stagnant water, His footsteps echoed off the walls as he ran deeper, darkness swallowing him whole. Then, A faint glow ahead.

Ray slowed, his pulse pounding in his ears, The tunnel opened into a chamber lined with servers. Humming, blinking, alive, And in the center of it, a single desk with an open laptop.

On the screen: a message.

HELLO, RAY. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT ELLA.

The servers hummed like a swarm of wasps, Their blue LEDs blinked in rhythm, casting shifting shadows over the concrete walls, Ray’s boots scraped against the damp floor as he stepped into the chamber.

He scanned the room, no movement, no sound except the machines. Yet the open laptop on the desk felt like an eye staring straight at him.

He approached slowly, his own reflection stretching across the glossy black casing, The message on the screen pulsed once, Then another line appeared: I KNOW ABOUT THE BLOOD LEDGER.

Ray swallowed. His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he typed back: Who are you?

The reply came instantly.

A FRIEND. FOR NOW.

Ray’s eyes flicked toward the tunnel he’d entered from. The hum of the SUV’s engine had faded, but his skin still prickled with the certainty that whoever was chasing him wasn’t far.

What do you want?

TO HELP YOU STAY ALIVE.

Another flicker. Another line.

ELLA IS NOT WHO YOU THINK SHE IS.

Ray felt his pulse spike. His first instinct was anger, Ella had nothing to do with this mess. She was his one anchor in a storm of uncertainty.

You’re lying.

AM I? CHECK FILE 7 ON THE DRIVE.

Ray froze. The encrypted drive was still in his backpack. Whoever this was, they knew what he had… which meant they’d been inside his system.

His hands moved automatically, unzipping the bag, plugging the drive into the laptop. The directory opened, and there it was: File_07 – INTERNAL_PERSONNEL_ELLA.R.

He clicked. And the world tilted.

Surveillance photos, grainy, long-lens shots from rooftops, cafes, hotel lobbies. All of Ella. But not just living her life, meeting with people Ray recognized from the Blood Ledger. Passing envelopes. Shaking hands.

The timestamps spanned years, And then came the final image, Ella at a private dinner table, sitting across from Marcus Vance himself, Ray stared, his breath shallow. “No…”

DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW? flashed on the screen.

Before he could type a response, a new sound rippled through the chamber, the faint scrape of shoes on concrete.

Ray spun around, At the far end of the room, a door he hadn’t noticed before stood ajar. And in that doorway… a man’s silhouette.

Tall, broad shoulders, a voice like gravel. “You’re harder to track than I thought, Martin.”

Ray’s blood iced over. He knew that voice, It belonged to Cole Harker, former military intelligence, now one of Vance’s most feared enforcers. The kind of man whose name traveled ahead of him, whispered in the corners of bars before people changed the subject.

Ray took a step back, hands tightening into fists, Harker stepped forward into the light. The scar running from his eyebrow to his cheek caught the glow of the servers. “Put the drive on the desk. Walk away, and maybe I let you keep breathing.”

Ray’s mind raced. He couldn’t hand over the ledger, not now. Not after seeing Ella’s file. “I don’t walk away from this,” Ray said, forcing his voice to stay level.

Harker’s smirk didn’t reach his eyes. “Then you don’t walk away at all.”

He moved fast, too fast for his size, closing the distance with heavy strides, Ray grabbed the laptop and hurled it at Harker. It smashed into the man’s forearm, buying him a fraction of a second. Enough to lunge for the side door.

Bullets chewed the wall just inches from his head as he sprinted through the doorway and into another tunnel, This one was narrower, lit by a single flickering bulb. The air tasted of rust.

Ray ran until the tunnel forked. Left or right?

A shout behind him, Harker was closing in, He went right. The passage twisted, then opened into a staircase that spiraled upward. He took the steps two at a time, chest burning, until a hatch overhead slammed against his shoulder.

He shoved it open and emerged into cold night air, He was in the middle of a deserted freight yard. Rows of shipping containers loomed around him like silent sentinels.

Ray’s boots crunched on gravel as he ran between them, searching for an exit, A sudden metallic clang to his left. He turned, too late, Harker tackled him from the side, driving him into the ground. The impact rattled his teeth.

They struggled, fists and elbows flying, until Harker’s knee pinned Ray’s chest. “You should’ve taken my offer,” Harker growled, raising a pistol.

The muzzle flashed, and Harker jerked sideways, collapsing in a heap. Ray blinked, stunned. Behind Harker, standing in the shadow of a container, was Ella.

She was holding a gun. And her hands weren’t shaking, She stepped into the light, her expression unreadable. “We need to talk,” she said.

Ray pushed himself up, heart pounding. “About what?”

Ella’s gaze flicked to the drive still clutched in his hand. “About why you were never supposed to see File 7.”