Chapter 2 - The Hidden Ledger
While the estate settled into a tense, watchful quiet, Adrian spent the remainder of the night in his private study reviewing the digital archives and physical ledgers seized from Renata’s private quarters.
What he discovered went far beyond a petty workplace framing.
Renata hadn't just acted alone. For over five years, she had been systematically skimming funds from the estate’s operational accounts, using shell companies registered under defunct catering suppliers to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into offshore accounts. More dangerously, she had been quietly selling internal security schedules to a rival syndicate operating out of Boston—the very same faction that had been trying to compromise Adrian’s port acquisitions along the eastern seaboard.
At 3:00 a.m., his chief enforcer, Frank, entered the study and dropped a heavy, encrypted flash drive onto the mahogany desk.
"We unlocked her private terminal, Boss," Frank reported grimly. "She wasn't just working with external rivals. She had a direct line to Victor Vance, the head of the Boston syndicate."
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Adrian’s jaw tightened. Victor Vance was an old adversary who had spent years trying to break into the New York shipping lanes. If Vance had internal floor plans, guard rotations, and security override codes for the Long Island estate, the entire Valenti operation was vulnerable from the inside.
"Vance thinks he has an open door into my house," Adrian murmured, his dark eyes narrowing with cold calculation. "Let's see how he likes walking into a trap."
