Chapter 3 - THE HIDDEN LEDGERS
I checked into a secure hotel downtown, a place with restricted keycard access and a heavy deadbolt. The physical pain from my burns was a constant, throbbing ache, but my mind was racing with a terrifying clarity.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I began unpacking my work bag to set up my laptop. As I pulled out my files, a heavy black external hard drive slipped onto the mattress. I frowned. It wasn't mine. In my rush to pack my office, I had accidentally grabbed Ryan’s encrypted backup drive from the bottom drawer of the desk we shared.
Curiosity overrode exhaustion. Ryan was fiercely protective of this drive. He claimed it was just mundane tax documents for his consulting firm, but he kept it locked away.
I plugged it in. A password prompt appeared. Knowing Ryan’s arrogance, I typed in the name of his beloved childhood dog, capitalized with his birth year. Access Granted.
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What I found was not tax documents. It was an intricate web of offshore accounts, shell companies, and massive wire transfers. Over the next six hours, my background as an administrative assistant specializing in financial auditing kicked in. Ryan wasn't just consulting; he was laundering millions of dollars. And the names attached to the shell companies made my blood run cold. They were fronts for the Moretti syndicate, a notorious organized crime family operating out of the East Coast.
My husband wasn't just an abuser. He was a criminal accountant for the mob. And now, I had the only copy of his ledger.
