Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Boardroom Who Sold Her Name to the Syndicate
Dawn broke over the cliffs of Eze in streaks of amber and rose. Elena had barely slept two hours, curled on the leather sofa in Enzo's private study, wrapped in his heavy cashmere coat.
She woke to the sound of Enzo’s raised voice in the adjacent communications room.
"Trace the IP address of the hotel concierge leak!" Enzo commanded. "Someone inside my New York corporate office provided Elena’s travel itinerary and private room number to Volkov’s operatives."
Marco was typing rapidly on a secure terminal. "The leak didn't come from security. It came from the executive floor. A financial transfer of two million dollars was wired to an offshore account in the Caymans three days ago."
Elena walked into the doorway, rubbing her eyes. "Let me see the account routing number."
Enzo immediately turned, his expression softening for a fraction of a second before hardening back into executive steel. "Elena, go back to sleep. We have this under control."
"I am the Senior Financial Controller of your firm, Enzo," she said firmly, stepping past him to look at the screen. "You might know how to shoot people, but I know how money moves."
Her eyes scanned the encrypted transaction strings. Within thirty seconds, she pointed a finger at a recurring routing code.
"That's not a Russian account," Elena said, her eyes widening. "That's a sub-holding account belonging to Arthur Sterling."
Enzo went deadly still. "Sterling? My Chief Operating Officer?"
"He's been embezzling from the Rotterdam port expansion funds for six months," Elena said, pulling up her memory of the quarterly audits. "I flagged the discrepancies last Friday and put a hold on his clearance. He didn't just sell me out to Volkov for money... he sold me out because I was forty-eight hours away from presenting the evidence to you."
Enzo’s eyes flared with a terrifying, icy rage. "Sterling sold you to an assassin to cover a corporate theft."
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"What do we do?" Marco asked.
Enzo pulled on a black tailored jacket, his demeanor transforming into that of an apex predator preparing for a hunt. "Sterling is hosting a high-stakes charity gala tonight at the Monte Carlo Casino. He thinks we're dead or hiding in a ditch. We're going to attend."
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