Returning home to surprise her elderly parents, a twenty-one-year-old self-made student finds them evicted on the street by their predatory landlord, pulling her secret underworld strings to destro...
The forum posts were a rabbit hole, each one confirming the last, painting Julian Solloway as a master manipulator. My laptop screen cast a blue glow on my face in the dim hotel room. My parents were asleep in the next room, their soft snores a counterpoint to the frantic click of my mouse. I needed more than anonymous forum rants. I needed Julian’s specific, actionable vulnerability.
I shifted my search to Julian’s business registry, cross-referencing his name with various LLCs and shell corporations. “Solloway Tech Solutions,” a shiny, venture-backed startup, was his primary endeavor. It was supposed to be his ticket out of small-time landlord status, into the big leagues of Silicon Valley wannabes.
I already knew Solloway Tech Solutions. I was one of the “behind-the-scenes” people who quietly funneled certain types of seed capital into ventures like Julian’s. Capital that came from Dominick’s syndicate.
A knot tightened in my chest. Twist 2. Julian’s entire tech company, the one he crowed about, the one that gave him the veneer of legitimacy, was secretly laundered seed capital from the very syndicate I worked for. And Dominick had no patience for unwanted attention.
I dug deeper into the older threads, looking for anything more concrete about Julian himself, not just his victims. That’s when I found it. An archived post from a defunct real estate investor forum, dated three years prior. Julian Solloway, under a thinly veiled pseudonym “J_Sol_RE,” openly bragging about his “psychological leverage techniques.”
The post detailed, in sickeningly casual language, how to “gently nudge” older tenants into “self-eviction” by subtly undermining their confidence, making them doubt their own recollections of payments or lease agreements. He even posted a crude checklist of phrases and behaviors to employ. “Make them think they’re confused,” he wrote. “It’s faster than any court order.”
My blood ran cold. This wasn’t just a strategy; it was a blueprint, a manifesto of his cruelty. And the forum also contained a thread discussing seed funding for nascent tech ventures. “Got some angels interested in a proof-of-concept for ‘Solloway Tech,'” he’d written, “big money, big players.” A contact email was listed. It was a burner address, but the IP traceback led to a known network hub that Dominick’s people used.
I leaned back, the plastic chair creaking under me. It was all there. Julian’s modus operandi, laid bare, and the direct, undeniable link to Dominick’s syndicate. This wasn’t just about my parents anymore. It was about Julian jeopardizing Dominick’s operations with his public, brazen cruelty.
I needed to move fast. Dominick wouldn’t appreciate his investments being linked to such messy, attention-grabbing tactics. This was leverage, but also a ticking clock.
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