Chapter 4 - The Pushback
You don't take down a kingpin without the cartel trying to take your head. By noon the next day, the blowback began.
It started with a freeze on my credit cards. Then came the unmarked black SUV parked across the street from my hotel. Marcus was behind bars, but his money was still on the street, and his political allies were terrified of what else I had in my files.
My phone rang. It was an encrypted number. I answered it on the first ring.
"Mrs. Vance," a gravelly voice said. I recognized it immediately: Judge Harrison, the man Marcus had been bribing for three years. "You've made a very dramatic point. But it's time to stop playing games. Retract the financial documents. Claim they were forged in a fit of marital spite. If you do, you walk away with a very generous alimony package. If you don't... well, the city is a dangerous place for a woman living alone."
I walked over to the hotel window, pulling the curtain back just a fraction to look at the black SUV idling below.
"Judge Harrison," I said smoothly. "Did you enjoy the golf trip to Bermuda last October? The one paid for by the shell company registered in my husband's name?"
Dead silence on the line.
May you like
"I have the receipts, Your Honor. I have the flight logs. I have the photos. If you don't want them forwarded to the State Ethics Board and the FBI within the next sixty seconds, you will recall your men from outside my hotel, and you will recuse yourself from Marcus's bail hearing."
The line went dead. Ten seconds later, the black SUV pulled away from the curb. I exhaled a shaky breath, but my hands were completely steady. The war had just begun.
