Chapter 3 - The Corporate Snake
Daniel didn't go home for Christmas Eve. Instead, he drove straight through the blinding blizzard to the Harland Township municipal records office, Lily sleeping soundly wrapped in his oversized wool coat in the passenger seat.
The building was dark, locked, and freezing. But Daniel didn't need a key; his corporate master passcards worked on every municipal digital lock in the county—a "public-private partnership" he had funded years ago.
He sat at the main terminal, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He bypassed standard firewalls, digging deep into the sub-ledgers of Mercer Properties' acquisitions division. What he found made his stomach churn.
For the past fourteen months, hundreds of foreclosure notices and eviction orders had been systematically funneled through shell companies. Harland Township—a working-class community built around a century-old timber mill—was being illegally seized piece by piece. And at the center of the web of corruption was one name: Theodore Vance, Daniel’s own Chief Financial Officer and trusted right-hand man.
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Worse still, a secondary file popped up on the screen: a termination notice issued to Lily’s father, Thomas Brooks, who had been the head accountant at the mill before refusing to falsify financial records.
Vance hadn't just been buying land. He had been framing the locals, driving them into poverty, and erasing families who stood in his way. And tonight, on Christmas Eve, Vance’s enforcers had forced Thomas Brooks to flee into the snow, leaving his daughter behind to send a chilling warning to Daniel himself.
