Chapter 11 - The Inheritance of Shadows
The white rose Dante handed me felt cool against my fingers, its stem stripped of thorns. As the sedan merged into the bustling afternoon traffic of downtown Manhattan, the digital tablet on my lap glowed with preliminary reports from the federal asset forfeiture division. Half of Karen Doyle’s hidden offshore accounts were still locked behind encrypted firewalls, pointing toward a network far larger than just a local corporate hostile takeover.
"The DOJ thinks Karen was just a regional node," Dante said, breaking the silence as he monitored a secure feed on his own device. "The real parent shell company—Vanguard Holdings—is registered offshore in the Cayman Islands, managed by individuals who haven't set foot in the United States in a decade."
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"Vanguard was her husband's firm," I murmured, recalling the name from the night of the siege on Elm Street. "If Karen was just a node, then whoever is pulling the strings from the Caymans watched her fall without blinking an eye."
"Exactly," Dante replied, turning to look at me with a gaze that held both warning and respect. "They are cutting off their own fingers to save the hand. Which means they know you’re coming for the rest of the empire."
