Chapter 59 59
DARREN'S POV
She said her name was Krystal McLaren and wanted to change it to Hunter.
But the moment she stepped out of that glass elevator, sharp in a monochrome Dior suit and those cold eyes that flicked over my office like I was part of the wallpaper, something twitched in my memory. A strand I couldn’t place. Her walk was calm, her posture regal—like someone who knew she belonged, even if no one else thought so.
She asked for legal consultation. Name change. Simple enough. Family issues. Financial restructuring of personal inheritance. She kept her tone casual, crisp, practiced. Not a flicker of vulnerability.
But something didn't sit right.
That name—Hunter—wasn’t ringing any bells, but Krystal... Krystal what?
She hadn’t offered more than the name on her file, but I saw the hesitation, that almost-imperceptible pause when she signed the intake form.
So after she left, polite and cool as chilled gin, I sat at my desk longer than usual. The name gnawed at me.
I tried to shake it off—clients came and went, and most were forgettable—but her? She had the air of someone who shouldn't be forgettable.
I opened my laptop.
"Krystal Hunter" wasn’t giving me much. But my gut said her name wasn’t always Hunter. So I went digging.
And that’s when I found it.
Krystal McLaren.
McLaren. Now that rang a goddamn bell.
McLaren Cigars Inc. was one of the prized clients of my firm’s biggest competitor. I'd heard the name tossed around in boardroom scuffles and cigar lounges. But that Krystal? Wasn’t even a blip on the radar. Not until now.
I leaned back, eyes narrowing as I skimmed through what little public data I could get on her. No social presence. No media clippings. Just a sparse trail of university records, a few police complaint forms, and a dated incident report from a Midtown restaurant.
Basic file, summary:
Adopted since birth by Elias McLaren’s older brother and wife.
Enrolled under "Krystal McLaren" at Belgrave University. Ordinary academic records. One complaint filed about verbal harassment from peers—ignored.
Fired from a restaurant job after "attitude issues" and a missing tip jar scandal that was never resolved but suspiciously swept under the rug.
Real father: Ryan McLaren, Elias’s younger brother. Died in a car crash—same night his wife gave birth. Tragic. Silent. Erased, almost.
So the true McLaren bloodline had an inconvenient heir.
A forgotten niece.
Krystal McLaren... now wanted to be Hunter.
I stared at the screen a long time, swirling my scotch slowly. The pieces were all there. No flair. No scandals. No obvious anger.
But something told me this woman hadn’t come to my office today for a simple surname change.
No, this was something else.
And I had a feeling she wasn't done yet.
KRYSTAL POV – TK BASE, 2:14 PM
I pushed open the reinforced steel door of the operations center with my elbow, balancing a tray of Korean bulgogi rice bowls, a dozen assorted donuts, and a carrier with four iced Americanos from that overpriced café three blocks away.
"You people better worship me," I announced, striding into the main floor.
Tomas didn’t even look up. The others (his nerds assistant) chorused their thanks while snatching drinks and boxes from me like a pack of caffeine-starved wolves. I just smirked and waved at Tita Maribel, who was sitting at her usual corner in the back, fiddling with a tangle of eavesdrop wires and muttering to herself in Tagalog.
“Hi Tita. You want donuts?” I asked.
She glanced up and gave me her usual warm squint, “Of course, I'm bored doing nothing, the kids were in school so I came here. Your wifi signal was great, I watched my Korean here.”
“Gong Yoo again?” I handed her the purple-frosted donut and grinned as she nodded her head, “Anything for you, Tita.”
Then I moved toward Tomas. He was hunched over three monitors, furiously typing, his brows scrunched together like someone just told him Santa was a fraud.
“What are we hacking today?” I asked lightly, setting his coffee down next to him.
“You’re not gonna believe this,” he said, still staring at the screen, voice low and tight. “You might wanna sit down.”
I raised a brow. “This better not be about some mistress’s bank account again. I am not interested in Mayor Alonzo’s harem.”
He finally turned, his face a mix of concern and something close to disbelief. “It’s Darren Johnson.”
That got my attention.
I pulled a chair next to him and leaned in. “What about him?”
He tapped the keyboard. “We already knew about his mom. That she’s terminal. Stage four, pancreatic or something. Bills unpaid. His dad owes about 5000$ to loan sharks—double interest, lump sum due last year. You—uh—covered all that.”
My throat tightened. I didn’t need reminding. I still remember standing outside that humid hospital, holding receipts in my hand, thinking if I paid it anonymously, maybe karma would catch up and Darren would wake up one day… and stop being an arrogant bastard.
Spoiler: He didn’t.
But Tomas wasn’t done.
“This... this is new.” He pulled up a folder, encrypted, now unlocked with our newest bypass code. “Someone filed a sealed complaint three years ago through an anonymous tip line connected to the Ombudsman’s office. Alleging Darren—yes, Darren—had offshore accounts under the Cayman proxy structure. Tied to shell companies that were later coincidentally linked to the Mayor of Valmorra’s wife.”
I blinked.
“You’re telling me Darren Johnson—Mr. Lawyer Ethics and ‘Your Documents Are Late, Ms. Hunter’—was laundering money for some petty political housewife?”
Tomas gave a slow, dramatic nod.
“And get this,” he added, “the account received quarterly deposits from a foundation Darren helped set up when he was still doing pro bono work five years ago. So all those ‘charity cases’ and trust funds? Shells. Hollow. Clean-up banks.”
My jaw was open. I closed it with a click.
“So… he’s not just some angry lawyer with mommy issues and designer socks. He’s possibly financially entangled with corrupt officials?” I shook my head, impressed in spite of myself. “Oh, Darren, you scandalous little weasel.”
Tomas leaned back in his chair. “You knew about his mom and dad. But this… this was buried deep. And nobody's blowing the whistle because the mayor's wife owns half the media outlets in Valmorra.”
“Well, she doesn’t own me.” I sipped my coffee, a smile forming. “This wasn’t in the script.”
“No, boss. This is new lore.”
Delicious.
I stood, adjusting my blouse and checking my reflection briefly in the dark screen next to Tomas's monitor. Darren had no idea who I really was when we met this morning. That was good. That was perfect.
But now?
Now I had more than just my pettiness and poetic justice to work with.
I had leverage.
And if Darren Johnson thought he was just a side character in my little surname-change drama…
Oh no, sweetheart.
The spotlight’s on you now.
At lunch time.
Tomas was already hunched over three different monitors when I pushed the door open again with my elbow, carrying a bag of Korean takeout in one hand and a box of artisan cakes in the other. “Food has arrived,” I declared, stepping into our freshly renovated, budget-turned-brilliant base like a queen returning from a campaign.
Tita Maribel was in the corner, curled on the new beanbag I ordered last week (pink and fluffy, because her old bones deserved luxury), fanning herself with a magazine that had Gong Yoo’s glorious abs on the cover. “Ay naku, Krystal, this one! He is the real buffet,” she said, giggling like a teenager. I handed her a mug of my French press brew and grinned. “We stan the king. Gong Yoo supremacy forever.”