Chapter 7 - The Sister Folds
I arranged the meeting through David Rossi. Chloe's lawyer brought her to a neutral location—a private room in a high-end country club she frequented. When she walked in, the arrogant girl who had filmed me on the porch was gone. She was pale, her hands shaking as she clutched a designer handbag.
"I don't know anything," she blurted out before even sitting down. "I didn't hack your servers. I just do social media for the company!"
I gestured for her to sit. "I know you didn't hack us, Chloe. You're not smart enough for that. But you are facing accessory to extortion charges because of that little video you tried to take on my porch."
Chloe burst into tears. "Please, Elena. My mom is crazy. She told us we had to support her or she would cut us out of the will. I don't want to go to jail. They took my passport!"
I leaned forward, folding my hands on the table. "I can ask the federal prosecutor to grant you immunity. I can make sure you don't spend a single night in a cell. But in exchange, I want the master ledger."
Chloe stopped crying and stared at me, terrified. "How do you know about that?"
"Because Victoria doesn't trust anyone, not even her own family. I know she keeps a physical ledger of all the offshore accounts and the slush funds she uses to pay off people. Where is it?"
Chloe swallowed hard. "It's not in her office. She keeps it in a safety deposit box under my name at the First National Bank. She thought no one would look at me."
I slid a piece of paper across the table. It was a drafted affidavit, confessing to her knowledge of the extortion attempt and providing the location of the ledger, in exchange for my recommendation of immunity to the DA.
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"Sign it, Chloe," I said. "Save yourself. Because Julian is already trying to cut a deal, and the first one to the prosecutor's office gets the best terms."
It was a bluff. I had no idea what Julian was doing. But it worked. Chloe grabbed a pen and signed the paper so fast the ink smeared.
