Chapter 10 - The Betrayal Inside the Empire
Connor’s first instinct was to blame Brenda.
Olivia watched it happen slowly.
He looked at the investors, then the investigators, then the monitor.
Finally, he looked at Brenda as though discovering she was no longer useful.
“She handled Northstar,” he said.
Brenda turned toward him.
“Be very careful.”
“I was not involved in administrative transfers.”
Naomi tilted her head.
“Your vehicle entered the property.”
“Brenda asked me to inspect an asset.”
“After Daniel Bennett’s death?”
“I did not know there was a connection.”
Brenda laughed once.
It was a cold, astonished sound.
“You pathetic coward.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed.
“This was your structure.”
“You approved every transfer.”
“Based on your legal advice.”
“You created Northstar.”
“For your clients.”
The investors watched their alliance collapse.
Olivia felt no triumph.
Only recognition.
This was what her father had understood years earlier. Connor and Brenda were loyal only while loyalty protected them.
Naomi allowed them to speak.
Each accusation added another thread to the case.
Brenda pointed toward Olivia.
“She created the models that made the transfers possible.”
“I created risk models,” Olivia said. “You altered their authorization pathways.”
“Prove it.”
Naomi removed a small device from the folder and placed it on the table.
“We recovered server backups from an off-site facility this morning.”
Connor stared at the device.
“That facility was decommissioned.”
“Apparently not.”
Brenda’s gaze sharpened.
“Who gave you access?”
The private dining room door opened again.
A man entered wearing a dark coat and carrying himself with visible exhaustion.
Olivia knew him before he stepped fully into the light.
“Malik.”
Malik Owens looked thinner than he had eleven weeks earlier. A scar crossed one side of his forehead. He stopped near Naomi but did not approach Olivia.
Brenda’s face became completely still.
Connor whispered, “You’re alive.”
Malik looked at him.
“Disappointed?”
Olivia stood, forgetting the ranch dressing in her hair and the pain in her cheek.
“Where have you been?”
“Protected custody.”
“You could have told me.”
“No,” Naomi said. “He could not.”
Malik’s eyes filled with apology.
“After I examined your badge, someone entered my office. They took the computer, destroyed the backups, and waited inside my apartment.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Then how did you escape?”
“Your father.”
Olivia stared at him.
“My father is dead.”
“He left instructions.”
Malik removed an old brass key from his coat.
“The night before Daniel died, he told me that if anyone came looking for the mirror protocol, I should go to Bellweather and open the maintenance tunnel beneath the western floor.”
Olivia remembered the message on the photograph.
Daniel found the archive beneath the floor.
Malik continued.
“There was a secure room below the facility. Paper ledgers, photographs, insurance files, payment records.”
Naomi said, “The second ledger.”
Malik nodded.
Connor lowered himself into his chair.
Brenda remained standing.
“What was in it?” Olivia asked.
“Records going back almost thirty years.”
“To Ward Meridian?”
“Before Ward Meridian.”
Malik glanced at Brenda.
“To Holloway Strategic Counsel, Victor Ward, regional politicians, judges, banks, and private contractors.”
The investors had gone silent again.
Olivia felt the ground beneath the story shift.
This was no longer only Connor’s fraud.
“How much did my father see?” she asked.
“Enough to understand that Northstar wasn’t created to steal money.”
Naomi looked at him.
“What was it created for?”
“To pay people.”
“For what?”
Malik’s voice lowered.
“Silence.”
Brenda moved suddenly.
She grabbed a steak knife from the table and lunged toward Malik.
The uniformed officer intercepted her before she crossed two steps. Naomi seized Brenda’s wrist while another investigator forced the knife onto the table.
Brenda did not struggle once she realized she had failed.
Instead, she looked directly at Olivia.
“You have no idea what you’ve opened.”
Olivia met her gaze.
“Then tell me.”
May you like
Brenda smiled.
“Ask your mother.”
