Chapter 4 - The Housekeeper and the High-Stakes Game
Colette was struggling. Between her two jobs, caring for her mother, and rehabilitating three traumatized dogs, she was running on fumes. Hestia was slowly gaining weight, but her spirit was still fragile. The puppies, whom she named Castor and Pollux, were bundles of chaotic energy, constantly chewing on anything they could find.
She had managed to buy a second-hand smartphone from a pawnshop, using the last of her money, and spent hours each night trying to decipher the data on the SD card. It was slow going. She learned that the files were encrypted using a sophisticated system. She didn't have the technical skills to break it, but she was tenacious.
One night, while looking at a spreadsheet, she noticed a recurring pattern of numbers and dates that corresponded to the payments for her mother’s nursing home. It was a coincidence, surely. She kept digging.
She found a folder titled "Charity." Inside were lists of donations made by the "Valente Foundation" to various causes. One of the causes was "St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital," where her father had been treated after the shooting.
A cold dread settled in her stomach. The dates of the donations coincided with the dates of the large transfers to the offshore accounts. It wasn't charity; it was money laundering.
The Valente family had laundered money through the very hospital that couldn't save her father.
The rage that had been simmering inside her ignited. These people had destroyed her life, and now their empire was in her hands.
But what could she do? Go to the police? The files proved the hospital was complicit. The police were corrupt.
She needed leverage. She needed to understand the full scope of the operation before she made her move.
Desperate for help, she turned to a name she found frequently in the ledgers: David Lin.
David Lin was an accountant for "Valente Cartage." His name appeared on countless invoices and financial reports. He seemed to be the one managing the day-to-day finances.
Colette decided to take a risk. She couldn't go to his office; that was too dangerous. She needed to catch him outside.
She spent three days staking out the Valente Holdings office building on Michigan Avenue. On the fourth day, she saw him. A small, nervous-looking man in a slightly-too-large suit, leaving the building at 6:00 PM.
Colette followed him. He walked to a nearby parking garage and got into a modest sedan. Colette quickly hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to follow him.
He drove to a quiet residential street in Lincoln Park. He parked in front of a brownstone and got out.
Colette waited until the taxi drove away, then approached him.
"Mr. Lin?" she said, her voice steadying with effort.
He turned, looking startled. "Yes? Do I know you?"
"No," Colette said. "But I know you. My name is Colette Brennan."
David looked confused. "I don't understand."
"I have something of yours," Colette said. "Or rather, something that belongs to Valente Cartage."
David’s face went pale. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"An SD card," Colette said, watching his reaction carefully. "Found on a dog."
David’s eyes widened in terror. He looked around wildly, as if expecting enforcers to appear out of the shadows. "You... you have it?"
"I do," Colette said. "And I know what’s on it. I know about the money laundering. I know about the embezzlement."
David seemed to deflate. He leaned against his car, putting his head in his hands. "They'll kill me," he whispered. "If Nico finds out... if Frank finds out..."
"They won't find out," Colette said. "If you help me."
David looked up, hope flickering in his eyes. "Help you? How?"
"I need you to decrypt these files," Colette said. "All of them. I need to know exactly who is stealing from Nico Valente, and where the money is going."
"But... but I don't have the master keys," David stammered. "Frank has them. Frank Gallo."
Colette felt a chill. Frank Gallo. Nico’s right-hand man. The man Nico trusted above all others.
"Frank Gallo is the leak?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"He... he’s the one who set it up," David confessed. "He's the one who approached Lorenzo. He... he said Nico was getting soft. He said the empire was going to fall. He’s... he’s using Lorenzo to take over."
The betrayal was so immense, it almost made Colette sick. This was family.
"Okay," Colette said, taking a deep breath. "You're going to help me expose him. And in return, I'll make sure you walk away from this."
May you like
David looked at her, then at the brownstone. He had a wife. Children. He was trapped. "Okay," he agreed, his voice trembling. "Okay. I'll do it."
"Meet me tomorrow night at 10:00 PM," Colette said, giving him the address of an all-night diner on the South Side. "Bring your laptop."
