Chapter 2 - The Audit of the DeadThe safe house was a sprawling, modernist limestone estate tucked behind wrought-iron gates in the affluent suburbs north of Evanston. There were no security cameras visible from the outside, but as soon as we stepped through the heavy oak front door, the hum of high-end surveillance monitors and encrypted servers whispered from a reinforced room down the hall.
Leo led me into a minimalist kitchen where a housekeeper—silent and efficient as a ghost—instantly set down a fresh pot of coffee and a porcelain mug. I didn't wait for permission; I poured myself a cup, wrapping both hands around the ceramic to stop my fingers from shaking.
Matteo stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out over a dark, manicured lawn sloping down toward the lake. He was on his encrypted satellite phone, speaking in rapid, low Italian to someone named Vincenzo. I couldn't catch all the words, but the tone was absolute, cold, and final.
When he hung up, he turned around and walked toward the island, leaning against it opposite me.
"Vincenzo is tearing apart the docks," Matteo said, his voice level. "Every shipping container, every ledger, every payroll record from the last six months. If there's a rat in my organization who fed the warehouse location to the hit squad, we'll have his name by dawn."
"And what about the bonds?" I asked, taking a sip of the bitter, dark roast. It was infinitely better than the sludge at the warehouse. "Two million dollars in bearer bonds doesn't just vanish into thin air. Even in Chicago, you can't walk into a Chase branch and cash them without triggering a federal flag."
"They aren't being cashed," Matteo said grimly. "They're being used as collateral. Someone is buying something much larger than cash. Weapons, territory, or political insulation."
I set my mug down on the marble counter. "My sister isn't a criminal mastermind, Matteo. I told you that. She's an opportunist. She runs when rent is due, she charm-swindles small-time art dealers, and she burns bridges for breakfast. But moving two million in bearer bonds requires contacts, offshore accounts, and institutional laundering power that Chloe doesn't even know how to spell."
"Then she has a partner," Matteo concluded.
"More than a partner," I corrected him, pulling out my laptop—which Leo had also recovered from my apartment during a quick, stealthy sweep before the police arrived. I opened the screen, letting the blue light illuminate my face. "Let me show you something. When I worked as a Senior Strategy Consultant for corporate risk assessment, I built algorithmic models to track embezzlement patterns across multinational conglomerates. Human beings leave footprints in data, no matter how clean they think they're wiping the hard drives."
I clicked open a local public records database, cross-referencing the hotel where Chloe had been photographed six nights ago with commercial real estate leases filed under dummy LLCs in Cook County.
"Look at this," I said, spinning the laptop toward him.
Matteo stepped closer, his shoulder brushing mine as he leaned over the screen. The scent of cedarwood and cold rain drifted from his jacket.
"Three weeks ago," I pointed to a highlighted line of text, "a small shell company named Vanguard Holdings purchased an abandoned grain silo on the south branch of the river. The wiring fee for the acquisition came from an account managed by a wealth advisory firm downtown."
"Which firm?" Matteo asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Kincaid & Associates," I whispered. "The same firm that handles the financial portfolio for your primary rival on the North Side, Viktor Vance."
The kitchen grew so quiet I could hear the distant ticking of a grandfather clock in the foyer. Matteo’s face went completely still, the muscles in his jaw clenching so hard a vein throbbed near his temple.
"Viktor thinks he can wage a proxy war using your family drama," Matteo said softly, a terrifying edge slipping into his voice. "He thinks by framing your sister and sending a hit squad to kill us both, he can destabilize my operations while making it look like an internal family feud."
"Except Viktor made one fatal mistake," I said, looking up at him with a cold smile.
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"What's that?"
"He didn't realize that the woman whose identity he stole isn't a helpless victim." I closed the laptop with a sharp snap. "She kidnapped the wrong Gallagher's twin. And now, we're going to audit his entire empire until there's nothing left."
