Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
She grabbed a cab and ten minutes later was walking through her apartment door, locking it securely behind her. After making coffee, she carried her mug to the secret room.
She'd gone over the paperwork before, but now she decided to look at it differently. There were patterns she'd missed. Connections she hadn't seen.
She spread the files across her desk. Bank statements.
Wire transfer records. Corporate filings for shell companies with names like Meridian Holdings, LLC, and Clearwater Investments Group.
All of them were registered in Delaware or the Cayman Islands.
All of them listed layers of ownership that led nowhere.
Classic money laundering setup.
She'd only really glanced through most of the paperwork before.
She'd started with the corporate filings for Japan, but that had led nowhere.
Now she would start over with the offshore accounts.
There were dozens of them, scattered across three continents.
The Caymans. Switzerland. Singapore. Each one lead back to a different shell company, and each shell company was tied to another in an endless matryoshka nesting doll of corporate structures designed to hide the money's true origin.
But whoever set this up had made mistakes.
Small ones. Subtle even, but mistakes nonetheless.
She found the first inconsistency in a wire transfer dated eighteen months ago.
Five million dollars moved from Granite Industries to Meridian Holdings, then immediately split into three separate accounts.
Two of those accounts she could trace back to North and Lebowitz.
The third went to an account in Singapore registered to a company called Apex Consulting.
She'd never seen that name before. She pulled up the corporate filings for Apex. Registered in Singapore. Single director listed: a law firm in Hong Kong that specialized in setting up anonymous corporate structures.
Dead end.
But the money didn't stop there. She followed it through six more transfers, each one routing through a different shell company, a different country, a different bank. And then it landed in an account in Switzerland registered to a company called Silverline Capital.
Tatum sat back, her pulse kicking up.
Silverline Capital had three directors listed. Not anonymous law firms. Actual names. She didn't recognize two of them. She’d done various searches but couldn’t find anything on them. She wasn’t convinced they were real. But the third name. That was most definitely real.
She knew that name.
She pushed her sudden dread aside for now and kept digging.
If there was one hidden player, there were more.
There had to be. The complexity of the structure, the sophistication of the laundering…
This wasn't the work of three con men and one mastermind.
Besides, the name she'd found, well, he was good, but he wasn't capable of being a mastermind. This was a team.
She pulled up another file. More wire transfers. More shell companies. And slowly, methodically, she started mapping the connections.
By the time she looked up, three hours had passed. And she'd found them. Five players, minimum. North, Lebowitz, and Kelly were the frontmen. That much was clear. They were the ones shaking hands, making pitches, and collecting checks.
But behind them were at least two others. Maybe three. People who understood offshore banking. Who knew how to structure shell companies to avoid detection. Individuals with the connections needed to move money across borders without raising red flags.
She stared at the name on the screen. The director of Silverline Capital.
Louis Anderson. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
The man was a scumbag, so why wouldn’t he be involved in this mess?
Oh God, she was going to have to warn her parents.
The last thing they would want was for the law firm to be tainted by this brush because they represented Lou Anderson.
Just the thought of making that call made her queasy. Her stomach rumbled, breaking her concentration. She glanced at the time, surprised to find it was past one. She needed to clear her head. Food would probably help her queasiness too.
She stood, her back stiff from hunching over the desk.
She'd only gotten partway through the files, but she'd found enough.
Enough to know this was bigger than she'd thought.
Enough to know she was in over her head.
And enough to know that whoever was behind this had the resources and reach to make people disappear.
If she were being honest, she'd known all of this before, but she hadn't really taken it seriously.
Her apartment being destroyed had put everything in a very different light.
She closed the files, locked her secret room, and grabbed her purse. Her fridge was still empty. Archer had gotten someone to restore all her furniture, but restocking groceries apparently wasn't part of the deal.
She changed into jeans and a tank top and headed for Kim's sushi place two blocks away.
"Tatum!" Kim, the owner, smiled warmly. "Lovely to see you. It's been a while."
"Hi, Kim. How are you?"
"I'm doing well. Your usual?"
"Yes, please."
Tatum scanned her emails while she waited. Nothing pressing. Her mother had called twice and then stopped bothering. It was going to be ugly when they finally met up again, but for the moment, she didn't care.
"Ready!" Kim called.
Tatum grabbed the bag. "Perfect. Thanks, Kim."
She was walking back to her apartment when she decided to make a quick detour into the corner store.
She needed milk since she'd used the last of it in her coffee.
She grabbed milk, a couple of bags of potato chips, her favorite snack, and was heading to the register when she suddenly remembered she needed toilet paper.
She turned around and walked back toward the corner of the store.
She was hit from behind. Pain exploded across the back of her skull, white-hot and blinding. Her knees buckled. The sushi bag fell from her hands, hitting the floor with a wet thud.
Strong arms wrapped around her torso, yanking her backward. She tried to scream, but a hand clamped over her mouth. The world tilted sideways. Her vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges.
No. No. Fight.
She kicked backward, but her legs felt like rubber. Her heel connected with something, a shin maybe, and she heard a grunt.
"Fucking bitch," a voice hissed in her ear.
She was being dragged. Away from the front of the store. Away from Kim. Away from anyone who could help. Toward the back. The emergency exit. The alley.
Move, Tatum. Do something.
But her body wasn't listening. The hit to her head had scrambled everything. Her thoughts were sticky, slow, like moving through molasses.
The door banged open. Cold air hit her face. The alley. Dumpsters. Graffiti on brick walls. A white van, engine running, back doors open. That cut through the fog.
Danger, Tatum! They're putting you in a van.
Adrenaline spiked through her system like ice water.
She jerked her head forward and then snapped it back as hard as she could.
Her skull connected with the guy's face.
She felt the cartilage crunch, heard him howl.
His grip loosened. She twisted, drove her elbow into his solar plexus, and broke free.
He stumbled back, blood pouring from his nose. "Get her!"
Tatum spun, already moving, but he was faster than she expected. He lunged, caught her arm, and yanked her back. She went with the momentum, used it to swing around, and drive her knee up into his groin.
He dropped like a stone.
"Jesus Christ, help me!" he gasped toward the van.
The driver's door opened. Another man jumped out. Bigger. Broader. Wearing a ski mask. Tatum's vision swam. Her head was pounding, nausea rolling through her stomach. She couldn't take them both. Not like this. She had to run.
The second man moved toward her, cutting off her escape back into the store. She feinted left, then broke right, sprinting for the mouth of the alley. He was fast. His footsteps pounded louder behind her, closing the distance.
Faster. Move faster.
Her lungs burned. Her head screamed in protest with every jarring step. She burst out of the alley onto the sidewalk and nearly collided with a group of teenagers.
"Hey, watch it!" one of them shouted.
She didn't stop. Didn't look back. Just kept running.
Two blocks. Three. Her vision tunneled. She couldn't tell if he was still behind her or if she'd lost him.
She ducked into a coffee shop, chest heaving, and looked back through the window.
Nothing. No one. She waited. Five minutes.
Ten. Her hands were shaking. Her head felt like someone was driving nails into her skull.
But she was alive.
She pulled out her phone and opened a rideshare app. Her fingers fumbled on the screen. It took three tries to enter the destination.
The Society.
She needed Archer.
Tatum stumbled into the lobby of the Society, and the concierge's eyes went wide.
"Ms. Wellington, are you—"
"I'm fine," she managed, though she was pretty sure she looked anything but. She made it to the elevator, hit the button for her floor, and leaned against the wall as it rose.
Her reflection stared back at her from the polished brass. Her hair was a mess. Her tank top was torn at the shoulder. There was a smudge of dirt or possibly blood on her cheek. And her eyes. God, her eyes looked wild. Scared.
The elevator dinged. She stepped out and walked down the hall on autopilot. She needed to get inside. Lock the door. Figure out what the hell had just happened. They'd tried to take her. Put her in a van. And if she hadn't fought back— She didn't want to think about what would have happened next.
She fumbled with her key, finally got the door open, and stepped inside. Safe. She was safe. She locked the door behind her, engaged the deadbolt, and slid the chain into place. Then she walked to the couch and sat down heavily.
Her headache was getting worse. Throbbing now, a dull roar that made it hard to think. She should ice it. Should check for a concussion. Her phone buzzed.
She pulled it out, expecting Archer. Or maybe security. Instead, the screen showed an unknown number. And a text message that made her blood run cold.
Stop what you’re doing. This is your last warning.