Chapter 2 - THE ECHO OF THE SCREEN

The next morning arrived with a pale, cold sun that did nothing to warm the glass towers of the financial district.

I did not return to my small house in East Los Angeles; instead, I sat in the back of a luxury sedan parked directly across from Julian's corporate headquarters.

Beside me sat Arthur, his head lowered in a state of deep, silent humiliation, his hands clenching the folder containing the decrypted financial files.

"I didn't know, Mom," Arthur whispered, his voice thick with a genuine, desperate grief as he looked at the medical files on his lap.

"Julian told me you were suffering from late-stage dementia... he said the crib and the yellow socks were proof that you couldn't be left alone."

"He used our father's name to get me to sign the joint petition."

"The petition is dead, Arthur," I said, my words falling like heavy, freezing blocks of ice in the quiet car.

"And by noon today, your brother’s corporate career will be completely erased from the state registries."

I opened my phone, routing an encrypted call directly to Captain Robert Mercer of the Federal Treasury’s Fraud Division.

Mercer had been a close friend of my late husband Ramon, and he had spent eighteen months tracking the very real estate syndicate Julian was representing.

"The warrants have been fully executed, Larisa," Mercer’s deep, professional voice boomed through the speakers.

"The federal marshals are already inside the main server room at the corporate headquarters."

"They have secured the original zoning agreements and the forged signature files Julian submitted to the county registrar."