# Chapter 13: Burning Evidence
The world spun in a blur of shattered glass and screeching tires.
The black sedan slammed into a concrete barrier and ground to a violent halt.
Smoke hissed from the crumpled hood.
Evelyn blinked through the haze.
Her ears were ringing continuously.
She instinctively placed her hands over her stomach.
The baby was still.
Too still.
“Bianca?” Evelyn croaked.
Bianca groaned from the other side of the backseat.
A thin cut bled freely above her left eyebrow.
“I’m alive,” Bianca gasped.
The driver in the front was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious.
Heavy footsteps splashed through the rain outside.
The back door was wrenched open.
Two men in tactical gear dragged Bianca out onto the wet pavement.
She screamed and kicked.
A third man reached into the car and grabbed Evelyn by the collar of her coat.
He hauled her out without any gentleness.
She collapsed onto the cold asphalt, gasping for air.
“Check her pockets,” a familiar voice commanded.
Richard Cross stepped out of the shadows.
He held an umbrella over his pristine gray suit.
One of the tactical men roughly patted Evelyn down.
He reached into the torn lining of her coat and pulled out the blackened ledger.
He handed it to Richard.
Richard flipped through the ancient pages under the glow of a streetlamp.
He smiled.
“Finally,” Richard said.
He closed the book and dropped it onto the wet street.
He pulled a silver lighter from his pocket.
“No!” Evelyn screamed.
She tried to crawl toward the book.
One of the guards pinned her to the ground with a heavy boot against her shoulder.
Richard ignited the lighter.
He touched the flame to the dry, brittle pages of the ledger.
The paper caught instantly.
Fire rapidly consumed the only proof of his and Charles’s crimes.
“Now,” Richard said, turning his back on the burning book.
May you like
He looked down at Evelyn with absolute disdain.
“Throw them both in the river.”
