Chapter 4 - The Web of DeceptionBy six o'clock in the morning, the rain had stopped, leaving the city wrapped in a cold, gray fog. I sat in a diner two blocks from the hospital, nursing a black coffee I hadn't touched.
Marcus slid into the booth across from me, placing an encrypted flash drive on the Formica table.
"Your brother-in-law isn't just an abusive monster, Mara," Marcus said, leaning in close. "He's a financial sociopath."
I picked up the flash drive. "What did you find?"
"Ethan Sterlingās law firm, Sterling & Vance, has been running a massive money-laundering operation through shell companies in Delaware and the Cayman Islands," Marcus explained, pulling up a series of financial charts on his tablet. "Heās been taking dark money from regional drug cartels and cleaning it through high-end real estate developments."
I frowned, looking at the numbers. "What does this have to do with Claire?"
"Everything," Marcus said grimly. "Claire isn't just his wife, Mara. Six months ago, Ethan used Claireās maiden name and her forged signature to register three of those primary shell companies. If the federal authorities ever audited his books, Claire was designed to be the fall guy. She would take the federal racketeering charges while Ethan walked away clean with fifty million dollars."
The blood drained from my face. "That's why he kept her isolated. That's why he destroyed her phones and kept her away from the family."
"She was starting to ask questions," Marcus nodded. "Two weeks ago, Claire called a bank manager in town asking about an unexpected tax form she received in the mail. The bank manager called Ethan. Thatās when the physical abuse escalated. He wasn't just beating her because heās a sadist, Mara. He was trying to break her mind so she would be declared incompetent before she could figure out what he had done."
A cold, terrifying realization settled over me. Ethan hadn't just beaten my sister in a fit of rage. He was systematically destroying her so he could pin his illegal empire on her shoulders when the feds came knocking.
"Where is Ethan now?" I asked.
"His legal team just posted his two-hundred-thousand-dollar bail," Marcus said. "He was released from the central holding facility twenty minutes ago."
I stood up instantly, grabbing my jacket.
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"Where are you going?" Marcus asked, grabbing my arm. "Mara, if you go after him now, Internal Affairs will destroy you!"
"He thinks he's safe because he's out on bail," I said, shaking his hand off. "He thinks he's playing a legal game. It's time someone showed him what happens when the rules don't apply anymore."
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