Chapter 8 - Agency
The private dining room on the second floor of Adrian’s Manhattan townhouse smelled of old cedar, polished silver, and faint tension.
By twelve-thirty, both men had arrived.
Marcus Bell sat near the window, his silver-rimmed glasses catching the midday light, looking every bit the polished corporate attorney who had spent thirty years defending the Romano name. Across the mahogany table sat Julian Vance—younger, sharp-faced, wearing an impeccably tailored navy suit with a silver tie, his fingers resting calmly over a leather folio.
Adrian sat at the head of the table. I sat to his right, wearing a simple black dress, my posture upright and composed. I wasn't the invisible wife sitting quietly in the corner anymore; I was a named party in a financial investigation.
“I called this meeting,” Adrian began, his voice cutting through the quiet room like a scalpel, “because yesterday afternoon, an unauthorized withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars was routed through a dormant corporate account using a forged power of attorney.”
Marcus frowned, setting his coffee cup down with a sharp clink. “An unauthorized withdrawal? From which account?”
“Romano Freight Holdings,” Adrian said, keeping his eyes locked on Julian Vance’s face. “And the beneficiary account was tied to my wife’s maiden name—Claire Foster.”
For three seconds, the room was entirely silent.
Marcus turned his head sharply, looking at me with genuine shock and confusion in his eyes. “Claire? That’s impossible. No one can authorize a transfer against a personal or maiden-name reserve without my direct sign-off or an executive compliance override.”
“Exactly, Marcus,” Adrian said smoothly, leaning back in his leather chair. “Which is why I checked the digital logs this morning. The override code used to bypass the legal registry didn't come from your terminal.”
Julian Vance didn't blink. He didn't shift in his chair. He simply opened his leather folio, extracted a printed report, and slid it across the table toward Adrian with agonizing slowness.
“If I may, Mr. Romano,” Julian said, his voice smooth and professional, completely devoid of panic. “I ran a preliminary diagnostic on the compliance server last night as soon as the alert triggered. The override code was indeed entered under a master administrative profile.”
Adrian glanced down at the paper. “Marcus’s profile.”
“Technically, yes,” Julian replied, adjusting his cuffs. “The terminal in the Manhattan legal suite, logged in under Mr. Bell’s credentials at 11:42 PM three weeks ago—the exact night of the Bellmont Hotel gala.”
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
I looked from Julian to Marcus. Marcus’s face had drained of color, his mouth slightly open as he stared at the younger compliance officer in sheer disbelief.
“That’s a lie,” Marcus rasped, standing up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor. “I was at the Bellmont gala until past midnight. My terminal was locked.”
“Your physical terminal was locked, Marcus,” Julian said softly, looking up with a calm, predatory smile. “But your network credentials remain active on the cloud server. Anyone with remote access could have spoofed your IP address from an internal terminal.”
“Like the compliance office on the fourth floor,” I interjected, my voice cutting cleanly through the rising panic.
Julian turned his gaze toward me, his eyes polite, cool, and entirely unreadable. “Indeed, Mrs. Romano. But the compliance office requires a dual-key authorization card to access the server room after hours. And according to the security logs, only two people possess active dual-key cards for that floor: Mr. Bell... and yourself.”
The trap snapped shut with a violent click.
Adrian went completely still.
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I stared at Julian Vance across the table, realizing with sudden, horrifying clarity that the entire web wasn't just designed to frame me—it had been meticulously engineered by a master tactician who had anticipated every single move we would make.
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