Chapter 17 - The Paper Trail of Greed
The attacker at the gala didn't stay silent for long.
Sitting in an interrogation room at the downtown precinct at midnight, faced with federal domestic terrorism enhancements for deploying a chemical irritant against a medically vulnerable individual, the young agitator broke completely.
"I didn't plan it!" he sobbed, his hands cuffed to the steel table. "I got an encrypted DM on Telegram from an account called 'Apex-Trust.' They sent five thousand dollars in Monero to my crypto wallet, with an address drop for the smoke bombs and the banner. They promised another ten thousand if we defaced the center canvas on live stream!"
Kieran stood behind the two-way mirror alongside Sloan and Agent Miller.
"Apex-Trust," Kieran murmured, tapping his chin. "Miller, run that through the Delaware corporate registry we pulled during the patent hearing."
Within ten minutes, Miller’s terminal flashed with a high-priority match. "Apex-Trust is an offshore vehicle registered in the Cook Islands. But look at the funding conduit. The crypto wallet that paid the agitator was funded twelve hours ago through an account at Banque Cantonale de Genève."
"Beatrice’s personal operating account," Sloan said, her eyes narrowed with lethal clarity. "She didn't just coordinate this. She paid for the smoke canisters knowing full well Veta's medical vulnerability. That isn't harassment. That's attempted murder."
"And here’s the nail in the coffin," Kieran said, his fingers flying across the keyboard as forensic banking records streamed across the screen. "Look at the destination account that was scheduled to receive the proceeds from the short-selling of Metropolitan Pavilion's corporate underwriters. Beatrice wasn't just attacking Veta out of spite. She was running a massive short-position scheme against the museum's primary insurers, planning to pocket twenty million dollars off the PR disaster."
Sloan leaned over the desk, reading the transaction logs. "She used Richard's hidden assets to fund the initial short margin."
"Yes," Kieran smiled, a cold, predatory grin of pure legal triumph. "Richard didn't disclose this account during his asset forfeiture deposition. He lied under oath on federal disclosure forms. Which means his plea bargain is completely void."
Sloan felt a shudder of electric vindication race through her veins.
Under the terms of Richard's original federal plea, he had been sentenced to twelve years with the possibility of parole after eight, provided he maintained full financial transparency regarding the family's assets.
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By hiding this multi-million-dollar Swiss account to fund his sister's proxy war against his own daughter, Richard had just handed the Department of Justice the legal authority to tear his plea agreement to shreds.
"Get Judge Miller on the emergency secure line," Sloan said softly. "It’s time to tell Richard that his twelve-year sentence just became life."
