Chapter 14
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The crime scene was a chaotic mess of flashing police lights and yellow tape on a winding stretch of road just outside the city limits. Elias Thorne’s luxury sedan was wrapped around a massive oak tree, the front end completely crushed.
Emily stood behind the police barricade, the cold wind whipping her hair across her face. Agent Carter walked over to her, pulling off his latex gloves.
"No skid marks," Carter reported grimly. "The brake lines were cleanly severed. Someone wanted to make sure Thorne couldn't testify about the skimming operation."
"My father," Emily said immediately, her voice hollow but absolute.
Carter looked at her carefully. "Emily, I know the financial trail points to Arthur Bennett, but ordering a hit on a CEO is a massive leap from money laundering. We need physical evidence connecting him to the sabotage."
"You won't find physical evidence," Emily countered, wrapping her coat tighter. "My father doesn't get his hands dirty. He hires contractors, pays them in untraceable cash, and builds layers of plausible deniability. If we want to break him, we have to break his financial shield."
"How?"
"The steel supplier invoices," Emily said, turning to look at Carter. "Thorne is dead, which means the Apex Zenith money loop is broken. My father's high-rise construction site is going to suddenly experience a massive liquidity crisis by the end of the week. He will have to move clean money to cover the deficit, or the project collapses."
"And when he moves the clean money?" Carter asked.
"He will make a mistake," Emily promised, her eyes flashing with cold determination. "We freeze all his secondary accounts immediately. Force him into a corner. When a tyrant loses control, he panics. And when Arthur Bennett panics, I will be waiting."
As they walked back to the FBI vehicle, Emily’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out. It was an encrypted text message from an unknown number.
May you like
“Stop looking at the ledgers, Emily. The view from your apartment is beautiful, but glass breaks easily.”
She deleted the message without a second thought. She was not going to be intimidated.
