Chapter 148 Chapter 148
Liana’s POV
It starts with a name I shouldn’t have seen. The Elia Trust. It flashes on my screen late at night, a stray entry buried deep in a quarterly audit I wasn’t supposed to access.
I tell myself it’s coincidence, that the name Elia isn’t that Elia but the coincidence starts to bleed into pattern and pattern has always been my weakness.
The cursor blinks at me like a pulse and I can’t look away. I lean back in my office chair, staring at the spreadsheet. It’s close to midnight, the rest of Z-Core’s financial department went home hours ago.
The only sounds are the air conditioner and the faint hum of the city lights far below my window. I’ve gone through a hundred client accounts tonight, but this one doesn’t behave like the rest.
Recipient: Elia Trust.
Amount: $2,500,000 USD.
Originating Bank: Saint Lysander Financial, Isles of Meridia.
Meridia. An island nation known less for its beaches than for the way it launders secrets through numbered accounts.
And the origin? Not an outside client. It’s from my company, Z-Core International.
I push my chair back slowly, a wave of nausea hitting me. I pull up the transaction chain again, forcing my shaking hands to stay steady.
There’s a chain of sub-accounts, small shell corporations under the Z-Core umbrella, meant for “infrastructure investment.” But the final transfer to Elia Trust was made three days ago.
I whisper the name under my breath. “Elia.” The air feels heavy when I say it. Stanley’s voice echoes in my mind, his calm, patient warning when I confronted him days ago.
“You’re wandering into rooms you can’t walk out of.”
I open the trust file. Most of it’s redacted. The trustee is listed as Aurelius Holdings, another one of Stanley’s labyrinthine shells. The beneficiary line, though, is blank. Empty, as if someone erased it.
A trust without a beneficiary is like a gun without a trigger, it’s still built to do damage.
I rub my temples. Stanley’s sleeping in our penthouse across town right now, no doubt dreaming the kind of dreamless sleep only men with secrets can afford. And here I am, in his empire’s beating heart, tracing the veins he doesn’t want me to follow.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
Dominic: We need to talk.
Me: About the photo?
Dominic: About what came after.
Me: Then say it.
Dominic: Not here. Zurich. I found something.
Zurich. The word sends a cold ripple down my spine. He doesn’t say what he found, but I know. I know because I can feel it, the invisible thread tying all of this together: Elia. The baby. The trust. The transfer.
The next morning, I arrive at the office before sunrise. The city outside looks washed out, the sky the color of unfinished metal. I swipe my badge and walk straight into Stanley’s private archive room, empty, silent, locked behind biometric access. It recognizes my fingerprint, though. Of course it does. He wanted me to feel trusted.
I open the digital console and type ELIA TRUST again.
This time, the file blooms larger, like a wound widening under pressure. There’s more data, hidden folders, encrypted attachments, and one line that freezes me in place.
Beneficiary: SERA SMITH.
Trustee: Stanley Smith (acting guardian).
Funding Schedule: Quarterly deposits, originating from Z-Core subsidiary accounts.
Sera. The same name I heard Dominic whisper once in his sleep years ago, before our marriage disintegrated into silence. I’d thought it was nonsense then—a dream, a ghost, a memory.
It was a name, His daughter’s name. My breath catches. The baby in the photograph wasn’t Camilla. It was Sera. The child Dominic lost and Stanley found.
By noon, I can’t stay still. I move through the office like a ghost, every face around me blurred by the hum in my head. I have to know where the money goes once it leaves Meridia.
The island accounts are notorious and opaque, hidden behind offshore protections but I know Z-Core’s systems better than anyone. Stanley taught me how to build them. He never expected me to use them against him.
I connect remotely to Saint Lysander Financial’s shell directory using a protocol that violates at least five international laws. The encryption is brutal, but after twenty minutes, the code cracks open with a satisfying click.
The funds from Z-Core flow into an account labeled S.L.F. #293-A. From there, they branch into smaller transactions includingeducation fees, property maintenance, medical coverage, all in Zurich.
Where Dominic is right now. I scroll further down the log and my stomach drops. The most recent transfer wasn’t the two and a half million I saw last night. It’s another, smaller wire, processed this morning.
Amount: $150,000 USD
Destination: Private Account — Sera Smith, Zurich.
Authorized by: L. VOSS.
It had my name and signature. The system logs my credentials as the authorizer. But I didn’t do this. Someone used my clearance, someone inside my department, or someone with full access to my digital ID. Stanley.
I stare at the line until the numbers blur. My husband is laundering money through my name, through my company, to fund a girl who should have been dead and he’s doing it with my fingerprints.
I press my palms to my eyes. My heartbeat pounds in my temples. The walls of my office feel too close, too white. I grab my coat, the folder I printed, and leave before anyone can stop me.
The rain starts halfway through the drive home. It slicks the windshield and blurs the skyline into streaks of gray and gold. Stanley’s car is already parked in the private garage when I arrive. He’s home early, Of course he is.
I ride the elevator up to our penthouse, rehearsing what I’ll say. Part of me wants to confront him outright. Another part of me wants to see if he’ll lie, to measure how deep the rot goes.
When I open the door, the smell of cedar and whisky hits first. He’s sitting in the living room, reading a file probably another board report he pretends to care about. He looks up when I enter, expression unreadable.
“Long day?” he asks casually.
“Long night,” I correct. “I stayed late at the office.”
“Ah.” He sets the file down, steepling his fingers. “Find anything interesting?”
I don’t answer. I walk past him, set the folder on the coffee table, and open it. The printed documents fan out, transaction logs, wiring details, the Meridia account. His eyes skim them, expression barely shifting.
“‘Elia Trust,’” I say. “You’ve been moving money through Z-Core to fund it.”
He exhales softly. “So you did look.”
“I had to.”
“No,” he says, almost gently. “You wanted to.”