Chapter 2 - The River North Safehouse
I stared down at the final pages of Leo’s black spiral notebook, my hands shaking so violently I could barely trace the lines of neat, meticulous handwriting.
"Leo... what are these addresses?" I whispered, pointing to a series of locations in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, far away from Julian’s downtown corporate office.
Leo swallowed hard, looking up at me with eyes that carried too much weight for a twelve-year-old. "That’s where he goes when he says he’s flying to Milwaukee or St. Louis for regional board meetings. Last month, when you thought he was stuck at O'Hare due to the storms, I tracked his digital toll-pass logs on the family computer. He wasn't at the airport, Mom. He was at a high-rise condo on Dearborn Street."
My stomach churned. Julian was not just having a casual affair; he was executing a deliberate, highly calculated double life, utilizing corporate expense accounts and hidden assets to fund an apartment under a shell corporation.
"How did you get toll-pass logs, Leo?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
"Dad left his master administrative login saved on the browser," Leo said simply. "I didn't hack anything. I just... looked. Because I wanted to know why he didn't want to come home anymore."
That afternoon, I didn't go to work. Instead, I drove downtown to a discreet law office on Michigan Avenue, clutching Leo’s black spiral notebook in my purse like a shield. I met with Sarah Vance, a ruthless, brilliant family law attorney known for handling high-net-worth corporate divorces.
When Sarah opened the notebook and began reading Leo’s meticulous logs—cross-referenced with credit card statements and corporate filings she pulled up on her dual monitors—her professional detachment vanished, replaced by sheer astonishment.
"Your son has a future in forensic accounting," Sarah murmured, flipping through the pages. "He’s documented asset diversion, unrecorded cash bonuses from Julian’s firm, and the exact lease agreement for the Dearborn Street condo, which was signed under the name 'Apex Holdings LLC'—a shell company Julian controls."
"Can we use this?" I asked, my throat tight. "It was gathered by a minor..."
"We won't enter it directly as amateur surveillance," Sarah smiled, a sharp, confident expression crossing her face. "Instead, we’ll use it as a roadmap to issue formal subpoenas for Julian’s corporate bank records, his electronic toll tags, and his cell phone geolocation data. By the time he realizes what hit him, he won't just be facing a divorce; he’ll be facing a federal financial audit."
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Sarah drafted the initial legal separation papers and asset freeze injunctions right then and there. We agreed that I would keep calm, pretend nothing was wrong, and wait for the upcoming annual charity gala—a massive black-tie event hosted by Julian’s company, where all of Chicago’s corporate elite would be gathered under one roof.
It was the ultimate stage. And Julian was about to walk right into it with his mistress on his arm.
