Chapter 12 - The Hidden Network
I stared at the memory stick on my desk.
"Why would he want this burned?" I asked.
Marcus looked at me. "Because it proves he was just an employee."
I leaned back.
"An employee for who?"
"That’s the mystery," Marcus said. "I’ve been tracking the money for months. It doesn't go to Ethan’s accounts. It goes to a group of corporations that on paper don't exist."
"How do we find them?"
"We follow the trail of the ones who were left behind."
"What does that mean?"
Marcus leaned in.
"Ethan isn't the only one who has been caught. There are others. People who were in his circle but were discarded the moment they stopped being useful."
"Are they willing to talk?"
"They’re angry," Marcus said. "And they have nothing left to lose."
I looked at the memory stick, realizing that the story I thought had ended was just the first chapter of a much larger conspiracy.
"We need to meet them," I said.
"They’re waiting," Marcus replied.
I looked at my father’s office through the glass. He had told me the fight was over, but he had been wrong. The fight had just shifted from the domestic to the corporate, from the personal to the systemic.
"Let's go," I said.
We walked out of the foundation office and into the elevator.
The city was vast, but now I knew how to navigate it.
I was no longer the girl who had hid under a bed.
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I was the woman who had burned the bed to the ground.
And now, I was ready to find out what else was burning.
