Chapter 4 - WHAT ELIAS DISCOVERED
Gus dismissed the guests.
The ballroom emptied slowly.
Dela remained beside the table.
She was exhausted.
Her back hurt.
The baby had been moving for nearly an hour.
Gus noticed.
"Sit."
"I'm fine."
"That's not what I asked."
She sat.
Gus placed the photograph on the table.
Elias.
Outside the tower.
"Your husband wasn't investigating my company."
Dela looked up.
"What?"
"He was investigating Margot's family."
She stared at him.
Gus continued.
"The Sinclair family had been purchasing distressed shipping companies through shell corporations."
"Why?"
"Control."
He pushed a file toward her.
"Elias discovered that several of those companies were connected to a warehouse network controlled by men who have been laundering money through legitimate freight operations."
Dela's hands trembled.
"And Margot?"
"Her father knew."
"Did she?"
"That's what I don't know."
Dela opened the file.
There were photographs.
Bank transfers.
Corporate registrations.
Shipping manifests.
Then she saw a name.
VINCENT SINCLAIR.
Margot's father.
Beneath it was another.
Paul Hawthorne.
Elias's older brother.
Dela stopped breathing.
"My brother-in-law?"
Gus nodded.
"Elias didn't work alone."
A terrible thought entered her mind.
"Paul helped them."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Money."
Dela closed her eyes.
Everything suddenly made sense.
The late-night phone calls Elias never explained.
The arguments.
The secret meetings.
The night before his death when he had told her:
"If anything happens to me, don't trust the people who arrive first."
She had thought he was talking about business.
May you like
Maybe he had been talking about family.
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