Chapter 3 - An Auditor’s Revenge
By 6:00 AM, the rain had settled into a thick, gray maritime fog that smothered the Boston skyline. Roz sat at a massive mahogany desk inside Dante’s glass-walled corner office. She had discarded the sodden dress for black trousers and an oversized cashmere sweater provided by Martha. Her hair was pulled back into a severe, practical knot.
Spread across the polished wood were three high-resolution monitors, a stack of blank ledger sheets, and her father’s worn mechanical watch, ticking rhythmically on the desk blotter next to her elbow.
Dante entered carrying two ceramic mugs of black coffee. He set one in front of her without a word, pulling up a chair across the desk. He wore a dark charcoal suit, devoid of a tie, his collar open to reveal the tanned hollow of his throat.
""Report,"" he said.
Roz didn't look up from her legal pad. Her pen moved with surgical precision, drawing lines, calculating offsets, and converting six-digit alphanumeric strings into banking routing hashes.
""It’s not just one account,"" she said, her voice brisk and devoid of emotion. ""It’s a daisy chain. Garrick didn't just steal my father’s insurance payout. He used the capital to set up four shell shipping entities under Panamanian flags. Those ships don't move cargo. They move phantom freight.""
Dante leaned in, his gaze sharpening. ""Explain.""
""Thorne Marine documents shipments of heavy machinery to Rotterdam, invoices European buyers, and insures the high-value shipments through Lloyd’s of London. But look at the vessel drafts on the harbor master's logs from terminal four."" She tapped the screen showing port weigh-in data. ""The ships are riding high in the water. The containers are empty. He’s taking payment for goods that never exist, collecting insurance when the containers are lost at sea during storms, and laundering cartel narcotics money back through the Milton bank branch where my mother’s trust is supposedly kept.""
Dante let out a low whistle. ""He's washing dirty drug money through your mother's care facility.""
""Yes,"" Roz whispered, her pen snapping clean in half beneath the sudden fury in her grip. Ink pooled over her thumb. ""The trust isn't running out of money. Garrick intentionally drained the legitimate funds so my mother would be entirely dependent on his personal generosity. He holds her life as collateral. If I ever spoke out, he could simply stop paying the nursing home’s life-support invoice.""
Dante reached out. Slowly, deliberately, he took her ink-stained hand in his. His grip was warm, dry, and unexpectedly gentle against her trembling fingers. He took a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the black ink from her skin.
""Look at me, Rosalind,"" he commanded softly.
She looked up, fighting back tears of humiliation and rage that burned behind her eyelids.
""Your father was a decent man in a city of wolves,"" Dante said, his voice quiet like a vow. ""When the Athena went down, he refused to let Thorne use his docks for human trafficking. That’s why Thorne had him poisoned with slow-acting thallium over two years. I couldn't prove it then. I was twenty-five and fighting to hold onto this harbor against three rival syndicates.""
Roz gasped, the air leaving her lungs as if she had been struck in the ribs. ""He killed him?""
""I know it in my blood, but I need the paperwork to put the rope around his neck,"" Dante replied. ""Now, we have the account numbers. We know where the dirty money lands. The question is: do you want him arrested, or do you want him destroyed?""
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Roz pulled her hand back, her spine straightening until she looked every bit the daughter of Boston’s proudest maritime bloodline. ""Arrest is too kind. If he goes to prison, he spends five years in a federal country club playing tennis. I want him broke. I want him standing on that same brick sidewalk where he left me, with nothing in his pockets but empty hands.""
Dante smiled—a slow, dangerous curve of his lips that signaled the beginning of a war. ""That is my girl. Get your coat. We're going to pay a visit to the Milton care home.""
