Chapter 6
The safehouse kitchen smelled of stale coffee and gunpowder residue.
Emma sat at the heavy oak dining table, her laptop open before a encrypted terminal Dante had set up.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
“Julian’s primary laundering front isn’t a restaurant or a shipping yard,” Emma said, her eyes locked on the glowing screen. “It’s a real estate holding firm called Meridian Trust.”
Dante stood behind her, leaning over her shoulder as lines of financial data scrolled past.
“Meridian owns half the commercial property in downtown Manhattan,” Dante murmured. “Including Bellanova.”
“Exactly,” Emma nodded. “And look at the transfer signatures for the past three years. Every single wire transfer routes through an offshore account in the Caymans under a dummy corporation.”
“Can you trace the ultimate beneficiary?” Dante asked, his breath warm against her ear.
“I can,” Emma said, clicking through a firewall bypass she had learned during her cyber-law elective. “Just give me... three minutes.”
The terminal screen flashed red.
ACCESS DENIED - ENCRYPTION LEVEL 5.
“Damn it,” Emma hissed, slamming her palm lightly against the table. “Julian has institutional backups.”
“Not backups,” a deep voice echoed from the shadows of the hallway.
Dante and Emma both spun around.
A heavyset older man stepped into the light, leaning on an ebony cane much like Dante’s.
It was Salvatore Vance, their aging uncle and former head of the family council.
“Salvatore,” Dante greeted, standing up straight. “I thought you were in Geneva.”
“I came back when I heard my favorite nephew was letting a law student hack into federal servers from a safehouse in Queens,” Salvatore rasped, coughing slightly into a silk handkerchief.
He walked over to the table and looked down at Emma.
“You’re Joanne Hughes’s daughter,” Salvatore stated, his old eyes studying her face.
Emma froze. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
“Everyone in this city knew Joanne,” Salvatore sighed, pulling out a chair and sitting down heavily. “She was the sharpest auditor my brother ever employed—until Arthur Kensington framed her for theft twenty years ago.”
May you like
Emma’s breath caught in her throat. “You know about that?”
“I know everything that happens in this family,” Salvatore said. “And I know Julian is the one who set her up, just like he’s setting you up now.”
