Chapter 94 Adeline
Adeline's POV
I sat at my desk, completely locked in. Three glowing monitors illuminated my face as my fingers flew across the keyboard. Surrounding my keyboard were the redacted blackmail documents Zara had given me. They were the most important piece of this whole mess.
Eric Weeks thought he was a criminal mastermind, but the deeper I dug into his financial history using the firm’s clearance, the very different picture emerged. He was far from a criminal, let alone a mastermind. He was a lazy, entitled socialite with a trust fund. He spent his days at exclusive country clubs and his nights throwing away money at poker tables.
He didn't have the discipline, the patience, or the technical skill that was needed to hack into a decade-old, heavily encrypted financial ledger belonging to the Whitmore estate. There was only one conclusion then: he had bought this dirt.
It was then that I stopped looking into him. I focused my attention on the people who actually had access to Zara's father's accounts a decade ago. I pulled up the Whitmore estate's employment records, cross-referencing names, tax returns, and termination dates. I was sure I would find a disgruntled former employee or two.
It took me three hours, two cups of black coffee, and an oncoming migraine, but at the end, I came up with a name that fit all the bill.
Marcus Thorne was a mid-level accountant who had worked for Zara’s father up until three years ago. According to the HR file, Zara’s father had quietly fired him for skimming off the top of a charity fund. Because Zara’s dad was a decent man, he hadn't pressed charges to spare Marcus prison time. He had simply let him go, and how did Marcus repay his former employee for helping him keep his dignity? He kept copies of the Whitmore private ledgers and sold them to the highest bidder.
I ran a quick trace on Marcus Thorne's recent bank activity. Sure enough, just two weeks ago, an offshore wire transfer of fifty thousand dollars had dropped into his checking account. The routing number belonged to a paper company whose board of directors included Eric Weeks.
"Got you," I whispered in triumph as I hit print on the pages containing bank statements, IP logs, and his current home address in Queens. I put the papers in a legal folder and stood up to stretch my cramping fingers and legs.
Armed with that information, I walked straight to the private elevator that took me up to Percy’s executive floor.
Percy's secretary, a fiercely organized sweet old woman named Helen, looked up as I approached. "Miss Volkov, Mr. Akilov is currently on a conference call with the..." I didn't let her finish her words.
"It's an emergency regarding a new client," I interrupted smoothly, not breaking my stride.
I pushed open the heavy oak doors to the office and stepped inside, letting the door click shut behind me.
True to Helen's words, Percy was standing by the windows with his phone to his ear. He looked every inch the ruthless lawyer in his tailored navy suit, but all that was until his dark eyes landed on me. His cold resolve dissolved instantly.
"Mr. Wu, I'm going to have to call you back," Percy said into the phone and hung up without waiting for a response. I know Mr. Wu was one of his most important foreign clients, and he just hung up like that. "Adeline. What happened? Is Alex with Zara?"
"Alex is with her. She's safe," I assured him, closing the distance between us. I dropped the thick red folder right in the center of his neatly organized table.
"I found the leak," I announced. Percy’s eyebrows rose. He looked at the folder and then back up at me with a flicker of amusement dancing in his eyes. "That took you less than four hours."
"Eric Weeks is a sloppy predator. " I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "He didn't dig up those ledgers himself. He bought them from a disgruntled former accountant named Marcus Thorne. I tracked the wire transfer. Marcus has the original, unredacted files on a hard drive at his apartment in Queens."
Percy leaned over the desk and flipped the file open. His eyes scanned the bank statements and the highlighted address I had provided. The amusement in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating focus.
"If I do this by the book," I continued, my voice steady, "I have to file a motion for a subpoena to seize Marcus's hard drives. That takes days, sometimes weeks, and Eric Weeks has a federal judge in his pocket who will tip him off the second my motion hits the docket. If Eric finds out we're coming, he’ll dump the files to the press and ruin Zara's family immediately."
Percy slowly looked up from the file and leaned towards me, so close that I caught hints of his perfume.
"So," Percy murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "What exactly are you asking me to do, baby?"
I held his gaze so he knew that I meant every word that I said. I was no longer the terrified girl running from the syndicate. I was standing in the dark with him, and I knew exactly how to use it.
"I'm asking you to bypass the legal system," I said evenly. "I need Marcus Thorne's hard drives, Percy. All of them and I need Eric Weeks to have absolutely no idea that they're gone."
A slow, wicked grin spread across his face mixed with a look of pure, unadulterated pride. He loved this. He loved seeing me ruthless.
"You want my men to raid his apartment." Percy clarified in that deep voice of his that made my knees weak.
"I want my King to do what he does best." I told him softly, and apparently, calling him that had the same effect on him because he reached across the desk to wrap his arms around my neck. He pressed a hard, bruising kiss to my lips, and I responded in kind.
"Consider it done, baby," he breathed against my mouth when he pulled back. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his encrypted black cell phone. His eyes never left mine as he dialed a number on the phone.
"Malik." Percy commanded, his voice turning to ice as his second-in-command answered. "Take a four-man team to Queens. I'm sending you an address. I want the apartment completely scrubbed. Seize every computer, hard drive, and flash drive in the unit."
Percy paused to listen to whatever Malik had said. "And if the accountant is home, make sure he understands that if he ever speaks the name Whitmore again, he won't have a tongue left to speak with."
He hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. "The drives will be on my desk by midnight," Percy promised.
I let out a long breath. Eric Weeks had picked a fight with a woman who he thought was vulnerable.
He had no idea he had just gone to war with the entire New York syndicate.
"I will gladly legally gut him once we get those drives."