Chapter 22 Callisto
Chapter twenty-two
Callisto
Lector Wren folds his arms and leans them on his desk as I slide into the leather seat opposite. It’s been a long time since I saw him wearing something other than sweatpants and a tank top, but now he looks every bit the polished Chief Financial Officer in his dove gray three-piece tailored suit.
“Well, this is a lovely surprise,” he says, smiling at me. “My son here in the office, in the flesh.”
Have Lector and Simon always called me their son? Maybe they did, but I hadn’t noticed because I was busy grieving the other father I lost.
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” I murmur, glancing out at Laversham’s cityscape spread at our feet. From here, the entire city feels like a picnic lunch, ready for devouring. Guess I avoided the Wren headquarters ever since Dad passed, as if he were the only Wren who made this place run.
Lector shuffles bound company reports to the side. “I’ll send for a coffee. What’ll you have?”
“Black, unsweetened.”
His smile deepens. “I should’ve known. Alistair was the same.” He buzzes the orders through his intercom and then taps one buffed nail. “You said you needed help with something?”
I pull the business summary page out of my laptop bag. “Remember when you guys were thinking of expanding into the hardware business, but you did some digging and found they operated a shell company and things weren’t above board?”
His mouth tightens in annoyance. “Spade Outlet. Such a waste of time, that company.”
I slide the page across his desk. “Could you do the same digging on Rigton Limited?”
“Something smells fishy?” He picks up the page.
I nod. “You could say that. I can’t tell you the details, but if it’s okay with you, I’ll call the OCB team I’m working with and put them on speakerphone.”
Lector’s eyes light up. “Oh, now this feels like a real challenge! Surely the OCB has proper analysts for this sort of thing.”
“Yeah, they do.” I grin, catching his enthusiasm. “But I reckon you might be faster.”
“Ooh, a little competition, then,” he says with glee, sliding his phone across the desk for me to dial. “I’m on board.”
I chuckle. Lector is competitive. How else could he run a company with a net worth of 100 billion dollars?
For that matter, he couldn’t have weaseled his way into Alistair Wren’s life without some serious balls.
Simon might have the alpha persona, but Lector’s a ruthless killer with bottom dollars and spreadsheets.
Once I get the OCB team on the call, we run through a few legal matters to protect Lector, and then he examines our findings so far.
“So Rigton Limited ceased trading two years ago and isn’t under receivership, but somehow still issues payments?” Lector slides reading glasses over his eyes and lifts a keyboard out from a shelf under the desk. “Let’s see if they left a shares trail.”
His taps on the keys fill the silent room. “As I thought. Public merger twenty-three months ago.” Lector turns the screen, showing me a share-management database. “You can hide a lot about a company, but the minute you issue shares, either privately or publicly, you leave footprints.”
I lean in and scan the highlighted entry. “Merged with DoorKit?”
Lector nods, but his mind already seems far away. He leaves the screen angled but opens more tabs and hops through databases, murmuring softly to himself, “This makes no sense.”
“Is there a problem?” Analyst William asks.
“Yes, but let me dig,” Lector says, adjusting his glasses. He says nothing, and I leave him to hunt, flipping open my laptop to look up the merger details. A few old financial news headlines mention the two companies joining, but with little fanfare. This kind of small merger happens all the time.
Lector removes his glasses, and they clink as he sets them down on the desk. “Well, this is thoroughly cooked, let me tell you.”
“What did you find?” I ask.
“Rigton Limited merged into DoorKit on April 19th. We have the company closure listed right here, but—” The financial whiz switches tabs and hovers his cursor over another line.
“On April 20th, Rigton Limited registered in the East Coast, but as a proprietary limited company.” He snorts.
“They used the name ‘Rigton Limited’ instead of the ‘limited’ business type. Pretty sure that’s illegal to begin with, but look at the timestamp.
” He circles a time with his mouse. “Most people would never see this unless they were a business broker or worked with the taxation office.”
I squint at the numbers. “12:50?”
“Mm-hmm.” Lector’s brows lift, but I’m not making the connection. “12:50 am.”
William’s voice buzzes through the speakerphone. “You mean someone processed the claim in the middle of the night?”
“The time zone,” I whisper, meaning dawning with brittle clarity.
Lector grins and points a pen at me. “Bingo. Now, one could easily claim that this is the automatic system running overnight, but I think not. On legally the same day as Rigton merged with another company, a secondary company with the same name opened, swept up the business number already deactivated in the central time zone, and reassigned it. And Rigton keeps operating as a private company, despite no longer existing.”
“But you can’t re-use a business number,” I argue.
He nods. “Correct. You can’t. But somehow they did.
My guess is they triggered the system to think the original deactivation was an error and simply reactivated it while also changing out the state code and tax ID.
” He lifts both hands and shrugs. “That’s above my capabilities, but I’m sure the OCB’s analysts can trace the digital logs inside the taxation department’s system.
That issue aside, I’m guessing what you want to know is where the money is coming from, because they couldn’t escape having assets transferred to DoorKit. ”
“I feel a headache coming on,” William grumbles. “We can’t track movement for a privately listed company if they didn’t raise equity.”
Lector’s already back on his keyboard, a determined look in his eye. “No, but you can trace who’s registered as the owners.” He scans a new page and makes a noise in his throat. “It’s another company. And they are, wait for it, Cash Link.”
That name rings a bell, and Lector watches me with his lips pressed tight together as I do the search. My mouth dries up as my Omoogle results clear.
“They’re a subsidiary of—”
“Alpha Cash,” Lector confirms, nodding.
“Wait,” William says. “Are we talking about the Alpha Cash, like, the payment app?”
Lector folds his fingers together, a gleam in his eye. “Yes, sir, we are. National market share of 32% of all financial transactions, and 11% of payments globally.”
“Shit,” I mutter. I flop back in my chair, winded. Alhedy told me Ray was tapped into big-time money, but I thought it would be cash in some airport hangar in the middle of nowhere. Somehow he’s legitimized his money and turned it into a financial superpower.
“This something personal, Calli?” Lector asks.
I nod, still processing. “Yeah. Something for Red.”
“Ricky’s omega?”
Damn. I forgot I’ve never told them we scent matched too, but it’s not something I want to admit with the OCB agents on the line. I tap a finger to my lips and he nods in understanding.
“Well,” he says, tracing a dust mote across the desk. “If it’s something you need more help with, I reckon I could step in.” Lector selects a leather binder from a collection between two carved bookends and flips it open. “Do me a favor and read this out loud.” He slides a printout across to me.
I read the title, Potential Acquisitions, for next year. My voice falters when I reach the third company name: Alpha Cash.
Lector’s already been investigating, but for entirely different reasons.
“What’s that about?” William asks.
Lector shrugs, but his grin is far from innocent.
I roll my eyes as I answer, “It’s evidence against an insider trading claim if he goes ahead and takes over Alpha Cash after this conversation.”
My stepdad leans closer to the phone. “But a little extra immunity from the OCB wouldn’t go astray. You know, because we’re cooperating with an investigation and all.”
“Oh,” William muses. “Well, I’ll talk to the director about it.”
“That’s all a man can hope for,” Lector says. He cocks his head, studying me. “What do you think, Calli? Should I go for the head while your friends hunt down the feet?”
I gape at him, stunned. He’s totally serious.
“But they aren’t even right-side up,” I shoot back, pointing at the evidence on his monitor. “That’s a ridiculous investment.”
“Is it? Even if we dig and find some rot, we’ll be the new owners—heroes who eradicated crime.” He shrugs. “Or whatever it is your team’s investigating.”
William clears his throat. “Sir, am I reading this right? You’re considering buying a company as big as Alpha Cash? Is that even possible?”
“Of course it is,” Lector says.
I interrupt, feeling a little breathless at the possibility. “We’ll talk about this some more. William, you’ve got enough to get a warrant for Rigton Limited, right?”
“Yes, that’s a red-hot lead. Thanks, Callisto and Mr Wren.”
Lector gives them some details to help them secure evidence, and we end the call. I scan Lector up and down. I might feel ready to faint, but my stepdad looks like an eager footballer about to step on the field. “You’ve got the money gleam in your eye, Lector,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “Of course I have. How about you?”
I twitch. He’s right in a way. Excitement surges over a lead, just like it does in the courtroom. But this is big enough to send ripples through the country’s entire financial industry. Maybe even the world’s.
“If the OCB seizes assets, it will devalue the company,” I argue.