30. The Money Flow
thirty
The Money Flow
*FOREST*
“Considering this is just a florist, there sure are a lot of customers coming and going so late at night,” I say.
Griffin and I have been watching the shop for two hours now. The sign says it’s closed, but there is light inside, and every half an hour, a few people drop by.
“For real, it’s crazy. Doesn’t look like it’s private guests either. And they are all shifters.”
“I know the man who just went in,” I whisper. “He is one of Jordan’s friends.”
“I call bullshit on that place being a flower shop,” Griffin says. “Or maybe the man is selling flowers during the day, but at night…”
“He is certainly something,” I say. “The whole situation feels off.”
Griffin and I hang around longer until the customers, or whatever they are, stop dribbling in. The whole place, while already in a deserted area, quiets down even more, and the light in the shop gets switched off.
“Now is our chance,” I say.
Griffin tosses me a look. “You and your luna are both kind of reckless.”
“We have to be, or we won’t succeed.”
“Fair,” he mutters. “Let’s do this.” A pause. “What exactly are we doing?”
“Let’s check if a window is open.”
“Oh, you want to break in?” Griffin sounds a mix of exasperated, sarcastic and intrigued. “Of course you do. What was I thinking?”
I don’t answer, but use the shadows of the nearby trees to my advantage to get as close as possible without being able to be spotted. Griffin follows me wordlessly now, and we circle the whole building, making sure to stay away from the front door. “No open window,” I whisper.
“Yes, but maybe…” Griffin’s voice trails off while he walks to the back of the house again. There, he carefully rattles at the window. “That one stuck out to me immediately. It’s an older one,” he whispers. “Let me try something.”
I step aside to give him more space and check our surroundings to make sure no one is watching us. With a silent click, the window snaps open, and Griffin pushes it up.
Lucky for once. Griffin links me and turns to me, his eyes flashing over. I will go in.
You certainly won’t endanger your life for me, I say.
You are the alpha. If I get caught, it won’t be that dramatic. If you do… he breaks off. I am your gamma. Let me do my job as your third-in-command.
I sigh, well aware that he is right. If I get caught, it will mean the end of the road for our plans. Alright. Go in. I’ll be here and warn you in case someone walks by us, or new customers are coming.
Griffin nods before pulling himself up and crawling through the window. For a while, I hear nothing from him, then,
This is a small living room, but next to it is a room that looks like an office.
That’s the one you need to check out.
What am I looking for? He asks
Notebooks, folders, anything that looks like he is writing stuff down there.
How about a laptop? Griffin offers.
Does he have one?
Yeah, it’s still on, but the screen is locked.
I frown. Be careful. If he didn’t switch it off, he might plan on still using it tonight. Maybe he is expecting more customers.
I will try to log in, Griffin says.
How? I am sure he doesn’t use 1234 as his code.
He isn’t, Griffin chuckles. But he has a Post-it stuck to his screen with a number that looks like it could be his PIN. Silence surrounds me until I hear Griffin again. I am in. What an idiot…
My mom does the same with her PIN codes, I say
Yeah, but at least she doesn’t run a business. Dude should at least take off the Post-it when he leaves the room for more than five minutes.
You are right. Now, hurry.
Again, silence descends, much longer than I want it to be. It starts making me anxious. Griffin, say something.
I am going through the files he used last, he says. There are a couple of OneNote files that aren’t useful. He just makes random notes there. On their own, they don’t mean much. But there is an Excel list. More silence, then he gasps. Goddess, Forest!
What, what?! I search around, an approaching figure in the distance catching my eye. It looks like someone is coming in our direction. Whatever you are doing, be quick! I think someone is coming.
Fuck! What I just found looks good, though.
Can you send the file to yourself?
That should work, yes. He is still logged into his email account. There is a brief pause. Sent me the file and deleted it from his sent files.
My gaze wanders to the approaching person again. It’s not one but three guys. Seriously, Griffin, hurry the fuck up!
Silence, and more silence.
A light gets switched on in the upper part of the house. For fuck’s sake—
I am here! Griffin’s head pops up next to the window, and without further hesitation, I help him climb through it. He closes the window again, right when the light in the room is switched on. That was fucking close. I grab him and pull him further behind the house, towards the shadow of some trees.
“That was too close,” I mutter.
“Sorry, but I had to make sure to remove all my traces.”
I tug Griffin with me, far away from the so-called florist’s house. Half an hour later, and only when we are sitting in our car, I talk again.
“Alright,” I say. “Shoot.”
Griffin looks at me. “Hold your horses, Forest. The Excel file… I was only able to skim it, but it’s all bets. The guy is a bookmaker.”
“No way,” I mutter. “I mean, okay, that makes much more sense than him having a simple flower shop. I thought he was selling something, but…”
“It’s not just that he is a bookmaker.” Griffin grabs my arm, tugging at it frantically. “Okay, now listen! Granted, I wasn’t able to look at everything, but I swear I saw your mom’s name in the list!”
When we return to Martin and Rose, the two of them are still sitting together, juggling numbers. Rose looks up when she hears us entering the apartment. “You are back! Please tell me you were successful.”
“Even if you weren’t, we were,” Martin adds with a proud smile.
“You found something?” I ask, hurrying to where Rose is sitting, wrapping her in my arms from behind. I lean over her shoulder to peek at the screen of her tablet. She points at an Excel file.
“We analyzed all the weird-looking, smaller transactions that weren’t accounted for anywhere else, plus the regular big ones from your parents’ private account.
Now brace yourself.“ She scrolls through the file, showing Griffin and me what the two of them have put together. “Let’s start with the transactions from the pack account; there are a lot that make sense. I studied the pack’s finances during the last two weeks, and many of them were easy to match; however…
There were small transactions that seemingly went nowhere.
These individual transactions alone aren’t necessarily much.
They are small sums, sprinkled throughout the week.
One alone doesn’t look suspicious. However, despite them being officially for pack expenses, they don’t show up anywhere. ”
“And they all lead to the same account,” Martin says. “Funny, huh?”
“If you add them all together, it’s a hefty sum,” Rose adds. “And it’s not just that; the flow of money is unusual. It goes from the pack account to this other account and then to your parents’ private one.”
“From there, once a week they pay a sum to the—you probably guessed—florist,” Martins says.
“Crazy,” Griffin exclaims. “How much money are we talking about?”
“A lot,” Rose says. “We are still going through the numbers, but so far it’s 100k at least. Definitely more.” She looks at us expectantly. “You two look pretty smug, too.”
“We broke into the florist’s shop,” I say, “and Griffin found an Excel file on the guy’s notebook. The dude is a bookmaker.”
“Bets,” Rose mutters, exchanging a look with Martin. “That makes sense.”
“Actually, that makes a lot of sense,” he agrees. “More than gambling at a casino does.”
“I will send you the file,” Griffin says. “We need to scan it carefully, because guess what… I spotted our very own beloved Donna’s name there.”
“I knew she was full of shit,” Martin mutters.
“We need to compare the sums she’s bet, lost and won, from your Excel file with the numbers Martin and I put together,” I say. “That way, we can find out what she truly was up to.”
“She is gambling through bets,” I frown. “There is no way she didn’t lose money.” My stomach clenches in sudden anger. “She has been taking from the pack. I need to know the exact numbers.”
“I have something to suggest,” Griffin says. “Martin and I take over from here.”
“But—”
“You both need to go to sleep. You have the gala tomorrow evening, and you need to look the part and also be somewhat rested to pull it off.” Griffin nudges Martin. “We’ll be fine, won’t we?”
“Absolutely,” Martin reassures us. “The luna and I already analyzed the pack’s money flow. Now what’s left is the Excel file from the bookmaker.”
“I hate paperwork,” Griffin says. “But I know what I am looking for now. I am sure I can assist Martin well enough.”
Rose and I look at each other for a while, then I nod.
“Alright, you have a point.” I take a deep breath, realizing how different it is to leave something in other people’s hands.
I have told myself over and over again that I can trust these two men, but it’s hard to really feel it.
I wasn’t even aware how much my trust in others was broken, by what my parents and Lissa did.
The only one who I seem to have complete faith in is Rose.
“We will go to sleep,” Rose agrees, sounding as hesitant as I do. “I will go through the numbers with you again tomorrow. I want to know as much as I can in advance.”
“There is something else…“ Martin says. “I want to reach out to my contact.”
“To your contact?” Griffin asks.
“You mean the beta whose ass you saved a while back?” I ask.
“Yes. I want to know more about the casino shtick. I am sure he knows about it. Maybe what the bookmaker is doing is connected to Jordan’s casino somehow.”
“That’s definitely a possibility,” Rose frowns.
“It’s funny. Now that I think about it, Jordan really spent an awful lot of money, especially during the last two years.
My old pack is pretty well off, but there are limits.
However, he flaunted the money. I guess it was another way to get the whole pack on his side and turn them on me. ”
The fact that so many pack members went along with Jordan’s tricks is infuriating.
There is no way that all of them were oblivious.
Rose is still a young woman. A lot of these pack members were around during her father’s reign.
They knew her, they saw her grow up, yet they turned on her, just because it was beneficial for them to do so. They have no integrity.
“Is it okay with you if I talk to the guy?” Martin asks.
“Yes, definitely do that, but don’t overwork yourselves.”
“Trust us,” Griffin says. “I know it’s hard, but you need to trust us. By tomorrow night, Martin and I will have all the data you need to have. When you are busted during the gala tomorrow—and we all know you will be—you will have something in your hands the moment you return home.”
It’s so hard to let go, but I decide to take the leap of faith. If I want these two as my allies, I need to trust them now and allow them to prove themselves. “I am putting my fate in your hands. Please, don’t disappoint me.”