Chapter 5 - The Web Unravels
We couldn't stay in the alley. I forced Robert into my SUV and drove him to a small, secure apartment I owned under my maiden name—a property my family had forgotten about. I made him take a hot shower, gave him clean clothes I had bought at a 24-hour store, and forced him to eat.
Seeing him sit at a table, clean-shaven for the first time in years, looking like the brilliant history professor he used to be, broke my heart all over again. The scar on his wrist was fully visible now.
"Alejandro’s men did that," Robert said quietly, noticing my gaze. "A year after the divorce. I tried to come back to the city to see you from a distance. They caught me. They told me next time, they wouldn't just cut the wrist."
A fierce, burning rage took hold of me. "Tomorrow, I'm meeting Sarah Lin. She was my father's corporate accountant before she was abruptly fired six years ago. If anyone knows how to decode the offshore accounts in that binder, it's her."
The next morning, I met Sarah at a crowded diner near Navy Pier. When I showed her the binder, her face turned white.
"Mariana, this is the holy grail of your family's corruption," Sarah whispered, leaning over the table. "Look at these transaction codes. These aren't just standard money laundering. Alejandro has been using the family shipping docks to move illegal, undocumented cargo into the country for a European syndicate. Your father started it to save the company from bankruptcy, but Alejandro took it over completely."
"Can we prove I didn't sign these?" I asked, pointing to the forged indictments.
"Yes," Sarah said, a spark of defiance in her eyes. "The digital timestamps on the metadata show these files were created and signed after your father's death, using a digitized version of your signature that Alejandro authorized through his law firm's server. It leaves a digital fingerprint. We can prove he framed Robert and blackmailed your family."
May you like
"What do we need to do?"
"We need the physical server keys from Alejandro's private office downtown," Sarah said. "Without them, he can wipe the cloud data the moment he realizes he's exposed."
