My uncle told me I was being shipped off to New Jersey to serve a mandatory alliance contract with a veteran syndicate partner named Gabe DeLuca.
Devlin’s eyes darted nervously to his computer. “Yes, it does. All forensic auditors need it. But Vic watches all transactions. He has alerts set up for any activity on your trust funds.”
“I’m not interested in my trust funds right now,” I said, pushing the crumpled report away. “I’m interested in his.”
I slid into the chair, pushing Devlin gently aside. The worn keyboard felt cool under my fingers. Julian stood protectively behind me, a silent, watchful presence.
Devlin fidgeted. “You can’t just access Vic’s accounts. They’re locked behind a dozen firewalls, shell corporations… He uses offshore banks.”
“He uses Apex Maritime, for one,” I stated, recalling details from my father’s old ledgers and Vic’s intercepted communications. “A shell company in Panama. Registered to a ghost address in Liberia. It’s his primary laundering front for cash flowing through the Newark docks.”
I started typing, my fingers flying across the keyboard. The syndicate’s private routing network was a labyrinth, but I’d studied its architecture for years. My father had taught me.
“That’s impossible,” Devlin whispered, leaning over my shoulder, his voice filled with a mix of fear and awe. “How do you know that?”
“My father called it ‘follow the ghost ship’,” I explained, navigating through layers of encrypted directories. “Apex Maritime. Sounds legitimate. But the registration numbers tell a different story.”
I bypassed two security checkpoints, then a third, using a combination of obsolete administrative backdoors and recent transaction patterns I’d memorized. The screen flickered, then resolved onto a financial dashboard. Apex Maritime’s balance appeared: a healthy seven figures.
“Vic’s got over twelve million in there right now,” I murmured, seeing the exact number. “A lot of it is Don Moretti’s money.”
Devlin sucked in a sharp breath. “If Vic finds out you’re in there, he’ll kill us both.”
“He’s already trying to kill us both,” I countered, locating the specific sub-account linked to the warehouse mortgage. The money I’d used to pay off the first $300,000 had come from a dormant family investment account, untouched since my parents’ deaths, but it was nowhere near enough to counter this new, immediate demand. This needed a bigger play.
“My own frozen trust fund would be a traceable withdrawal,” I said. “Vic would know immediately. But money moving *within* his own network? That’s harder to spot right away.”
I initiated an electronic transfer. A prompt appeared: “Enter Amount.”
“He needed $300,000 for the immediate foreclosure,” I said, typing. “But he’s also got operating expenses, payroll, bribes… He probably just paid you out of a different local fund.”
I entered $450,000. Julian tensed.
“Why so much?” he asked. “The demand is $300,000.”
“Because it’s not just about paying the debt,” I said, watching the transaction process. “It’s about creating an imbalance. An anomaly he can’t easily explain.”
A confirmation message flashed green: “$450,000 transferred to Ross-Kress Warehouse Mortgage Account. Transaction ID: RKM-7419-ALPHA.”
The Apex Maritime balance instantly dropped by $450,000.
“The extra $150,000,” I explained, turning to Devlin, “will create an unreconciled deficit in Vic’s books. A phantom expense. It will show up on Don Moretti’s weekly audit as a ‘missing’ amount.”
Devlin’s jaw dropped. “An unexplained deficit? Don Moretti will send his own auditors for that. He hates unaccounted-for money.”
“Exactly,” I said, standing up from the chair. “He’ll assume it’s Vic skimming from *his* funds. Which, technically, it is. But not in the way Vic intends.”
Julian let out a slow exhale, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. He looked at the screen, then at me, a new kind of respect in his eyes.
“So the warehouse is paid off,” Julian said. “Again.”
“And Vic’s primary laundering account is suddenly $150,000 short,” I confirmed. “Which will give him a much bigger problem than Julian’s warehouse.”
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