Chapter 8 - The Federal Presence
Claire turned sharply, her hand dropping instinctively toward her black clutch. David stood up from his chair, his hands raised slightly in a defensive gesture. The two men standing in the doorway did not look like corporate security; their posture, their heavy leather shoes, and the quiet authority in their bearing screamed federal agents.
The taller agent, a man with sharp graying temples and a dark trench coat, pulled a leather badge case from his interior pocket and flashed it briefly.
"Ms. Claire Miller?" the agent asked, his voice deep and measured. "I'm Special Agent Vance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s White-Collar Crime Division. No relation to the Vance shipping family, before you ask."
Claire exhaled slowly, letting her hand relax away from her clutch. She glanced at the open phone still clutched in her hand, where Thomas was frantically shouting her name from the speaker. With a flick of her thumb, she ended the call and slipped the phone into her pocket.
"Agent Vance," Claire acknowledged calmly, stepping away from the desk. "You're early. The formal audit transfer wasn't scheduled to hit the federal portal until eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
"When a high-profile corporate gala ends with a public freeze of ten million dollars in joint assets, the financial crimes wire service tends to ping our terminals ahead of schedule," Agent Vance replied, stepping further into the room. His eyes flicked to the dual monitors displaying the glowing transaction logs. "It looks like you've already done half our legwork."
"My team secured the primary ledgers and the secondary partitions," David interjected, pointing to the screen. "We traced the siphoned capital to several offshore shell companies. And, unfortunately, the trail also points to domestic collusion involving a family member."
Agent Vance nodded slowly, pulling a small notebook from his coat pocket. "We know about your brother, Thomas Miller. Our field office intercepted a suspicious wire transfer from his personal account to one of Julian Vance's Cayman shells about an hour before you arrived here."
Claire felt a sharp pang of sorrow, quickly buried beneath her professional armor. "So he's already flagged."
"He's currently being brought in for questioning by our downtown unit," Agent Vance confirmed. "Which brings us to why we're here tonight, Ms. Miller. Julian Vance didn't just embezzle corporate funds and commit wire fraud. We've uncovered evidence suggesting he's been moving physical cargo outside customs compliance through a secondary logistics route—one that involves your family's shipping company."
Elena's father, Marcus Vance, stepped out from the hallway behind the two agents, his face grim and weathered by decades of high-stakes business battles.
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"It's true, Claire," Marcus said quietly, stepping into the server room. "Julian used my company's manifests to smuggle counterfeit electronics and unverified materials through the Port of Long Beach. If the federal authorities trace those shipments back to us without our preemptive cooperation, the Vance empire goes down with him."
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