Chapter 11 - THE NIGHT THE EMPIRE FELL
Arthur Bellamy made his move at dawn.
Bank accounts were frozen.
Several Greybridge executives vanished.
Three freight terminals abruptly closed.
Anonymous messages accused Roman of stealing company funds.
By noon, financial news channels were reporting that the Bellamy organization was collapsing.
Roman watched the coverage without emotion.
Daniel entered.
“Arthur's calling every old ally we have.”
“Let him.”
“He's offering them control if they turn against you.”
“Let them choose.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Some already have.”
Roman nodded.
“Then we know who they are.”
Across Manhattan, Tessa sat with Rebecca Shaw reviewing her mother's documents.
She noticed something the investigators had missed.
A pattern in the invoices.
The same supplier number appeared repeatedly.
But the company names changed.
“Why would they do that?” Rebecca asked.
“To hide payments.”
“That's obvious.”
“No,” Tessa said. “Look at the dates.”
Every payment occurred on the seventeenth day of the month.
Except one.
A payment dated the sixteenth.
The month before Evelyn disappeared.
Tessa opened the invoice.
There was a handwritten note.
Transfer approved. Harbor House.
Rebecca searched the address.
It belonged to an old medical rehabilitation facility in northern New Jersey.
A property Arthur had quietly purchased through a shell company.
Tessa felt her pulse accelerate.
“The map from the warehouse had twenty-seven locations.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Harbor House was number seventeen.”
The prosecutor stood.
“I need to make some calls.”
Within an hour, federal agents had obtained a warrant.
Roman received the news at his office.
“I'm coming,” he told Rebecca.
“No,” she replied.
“This is my family.”
“And this is a federal operation.”
Roman looked toward Tessa.
She stood beside the window.
“She's right,” Tessa said.
Roman frowned.
“You don't want to be there?”
“I want my father alive.”
“So do I.”
“Then don't give Arthur an excuse to turn this into a war.”
Roman looked at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
For the first time in his adult life, Roman Bellamy chose not to control the outcome.
He chose to trust someone else.
That evening, agents entered Harbor House.
They found twelve missing witnesses.
Owen Arden was among them.
So was Tessa's father.
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But Arthur Bellamy was nowhere to be found.
And neither was Victor Sloane.
