Page 67 of Decoded
Keaton
M
y heart is full not just with the love, but the pride, that I have for Anna. It’s one thing to try and take down your enemy, but standing up against your family is a game I hate she had to play.
“We need him to confess. Pulling a confession out of him is going to be the fastest way to end all of this.”
“You're right. And I think I need to hear him say it. I need to know the man I called my best friend is actually the awful man you’re telling me he is.” He looks over at Anna. “I believe you, Anna Laura, I just need to hear it from him.”
She nods because she’s so fucking perfect and understanding. “And you think you can get that confession out of him?”
“I can do that,” Craig says. “I can invite him over. Act like the two of you are officially filing for divorce. See if I can’t get him to admit what he’s done. But I don’t know how I’m going to handle hearing it.”
His wife rubs a hand over his shoulder. “You’re going to do great, because you’re doing this for our daughter. I canput something together and maybe we could pull it off this weekend.”
“No,” Anna’s dad says, looking up at his wife then over to where Anna and I are standing. “We do this tonight.”
“If Anna’s dad consents to being recorded, and he’s the one with the device, then it can be used as evidence in court,” Camden explains. I called my brothers and shared today’s events but also needed help carrying out our plan.
“Got it. He can do that.” I’m so thankful that Anna’s dad is on our side. It’s going to make taking down this fucker so much easier. “There’s something else I need help with, though, and this is probably going to be more of a conversation for Lincoln.”
“If it’s anything illegal, I need to hang up.” I stay quiet on the line. “I’m hanging up.”
When we hear the click that disconnects Camden from the call, Lincoln speaks up, “Alright big brother, tell me what you need me to do.” There are so many different sectors of the IT world that so few people know about. Most people believe it’s simply fixing computers, but they don’t exactly know what that means. When I started taking classes, I loved learning how to build firewalls and protecting people online. That’s why I started the cybersecurity business. But it doesn’t mean that I didn’t learna few things that were less about protecting, and more about finding information people try to keep hidden. Then I passed all that knowledge over to Lincoln, who took a few courses of his own.
I’m good. Lincoln’s better.
I give my brother his orders to infiltrate the IT systems at Brenner & Associates, then hang up. Between Lincoln’s skill set in both finance and tech, I know he’s the perfect guy for the job to do some digging into the accounting world Daniel Brenner has built.
I walk back into the living room where Anna sits with her parents. Craig speaks first, “I called Daniel and told him that I was grilling out in honor of Anna being home. He’ll head this way in a couple of hours.” He rubs the back of his neck like he really doesn’t want to say this next part, “It’s probably best if you’re not here.”
That’s not fucking happening.
“I will stay out of sight, but there’s no way I’m leaving Anna.” I look at my wife and the smile she gives me makes me feel like some sort of superhero.
“I figured as much,” Craig grumbles. “But just know if shit goes down, it’s my turn to throw the punches. You already had your chance.”
Kara wraps her arms around her husband, “Oh, you’re so sexy when you’re protective.”
“Mom!”
“Tell me what you’ve got.”
Lincoln had something for me within an hour. I had no doubt he was going to find something unethical about this creep.
“We’ve got him. And shit, it’s bad.”
He explains to me about the set of files he found behind a firewalled alias, one of which had an unusual name. Accounting firms don’t usually store cash transaction transcripts, so why would there be a file for it?
When he decrypted the files and cross-referenced them with the official client ledgers, it was clear that Daniel had been moving client funds between shell accounts. He hadn’t just cooked the books. No, Daniel Brenner deep-fried them in grease and wrapped them in offshore shell corporations.
The scope was staggering. Millions of dollars over a handful of years. Inflated valuations. Falsified audit reports. A silent partnership with an overseas consulting firm that never actually consulted.
Daniel Brenner was committing fraud.
He was going fucking down.
Chapter forty-five
