Chapter 7: The Unlikely Alliance
The morning sun revealed the charred skeleton of Warehouse 4. News crews were already circling the perimeter, broadcasting live reports about the suspicious fire.
Julian Sterling appeared on the noon news broadcast, looking pristine in an ivory designer suit, delivering a sickeningly sympathetic statement: *"It is tragic that poor safety management by unregulated local contractors has caused such a horrific accident. The Sterling Group remains ready to buy back the harbor properties to ensure the safety of our city."*
Sitting in his makeshift trailer office on the edge of the smoking ruins, Mateo turned off the television.
The door opened, and Clara Montgomery walked in. She looked pale, wearing dark sunglasses to hide the stress in her eyes. Behind her, she dragged a heavy rolling suitcase.
"I left him," Clara said simply, closing the door behind her.
Mateo looked at her steadily. "Julian is playing a dangerous game, Clara. If you're here to play mediator again, save your breath."
"I’m not here to mediate," she said, pulling a series of encrypted flash drives from her pocket and laying them on the desk between them. "Julian didn't just order the arson last night. For the past five years, he’s been running an offshore shell company called *Aegis Holdings* to launder bribe money for three key members of the City Zoning Board."
Mateo picked up one of the drives, examining it. "How did you get this?"
"I was the Chief Financial Officer for the Montgomery Family Trust before my father passed," Clara answered quietly. "Julian thought I was just a pretty trophy wife to display at fundraisers. He never realized I had administrative access to his shared cloud servers."
Mateo looked into her eyes and saw no deceit—only a woman who was determined to right the wrongs of the world she had blindly lived in.
"This data could put Julian in federal prison for twenty years," Mateo noted.
May you like
"It can also release the frozen bank accounts Richard Sterling stole from your family thirty years ago," Clara replied. "You need capital to rebuild that warehouse, Mateo. Let me help you finish the Haven Project."
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