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I breathe out a heavy sigh. “Just tell me we haven’t hit a dead end.”
“We haven’t, but it’s going to be hell to find the kind of shit you need on Dominic.”
“What’s going on?”
“Dominic Bianchi is working for someone. Someone big. Someone with the kind of connections and know-how to hide even from me.”
Fuck. This is not good at all.
I decide to pull out my chair and sit, mirroring him.
I level him a hard stare. “Do you think you can find out who this person is?”
“You know I’ll do my best.” Jericho nods. “All the leads I had to check out failed, which led me here. I even had to enlist Virgo Antonov for his help.”
I straighten and groan. Virgo Antonov is the Pakhan—Russian mafia boss—of the Bratva.
I know him. He’s okay if you’re on his good side. He went to MIT with Jericho, so when shady shit comes around we sometimes contact him. But we—anyone with the surname of Le Blanche—keep that contact to a minimum.
The last thing we need is whispers that we’re aligned with the Russian mafia.
“Relax.” Jericho smirks, seeming more like himself. “You know I‘m careful when I’m talking to Virgo.”
“I’m just testy.”
“Understandably. Anyway, I only contacted him because I wondered if Dominic had climbed the ladder with the help of some mafia influence. The governor before the last one did that and it was big news.”
“I remember that.” I nod, thinking about the Jason Bell scandal a few years back.
“We checked things out and couldn’t find any connections to the Russian or Italian mafia, or any other group like that. However, we found something. Look at this.”
He retrieves the envelope he brought in and pulls out a sheaf of documents. It’s bank statements.
Jericho sets them out before me and points to some transactions he’s already circled. They’re all for hefty sums of money between one and five hundred thousand.
“They’re donations to Aspire, the charity,” I state, still looking at them.
“That’s what you’re supposed to think.” He pulls out two more sets of bank statements and places them next to those already on the table, then he points to some more transactions. These are from separate accounts but have the same amounts listed that were transferred to the charity in the same order. The deposits and withdrawals all match up across accounts.
“Money laundering.” I grit my teeth.
Of course, anyone can transfer money between accounts as they want but it tends to look shady, like in this situation, when the transaction ID has no real reference. That suggests someone on the inside at the bank working overtime to do Dominic Bianchi’s dirty deeds.
“Yes. Usually it’s not so easy to spot, but whoever was working that day slipped up. Also, I’m not supposed to be able to access all these accounts. Dominic has them listed under a made-up offshore company.”
“Jesus. So that asshole is dumping money in his daughter’s charity?”
“Big time. Then it looks like he’s siphoning it back out again for his personal use. However, these two accounts are from offshore banks in Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands.” Jericho taps his finger on the two additional bank statements. “When I tried to track the transaction I came up against one hell of a huge firewall I couldn’t hack.”
My mouth drops. That’s almost impossible. I’ve never known him to be unable to hack anything.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Meaning those transactions in particular were being protected. As in the person who deposited them to Dominic. Virgo couldn’t hack it either. We don’t know anyone in the mafia or the underground who uses that kind of high-tech shit. But there are others.”
“Like who?” My interest is so piqued it’s on the edge of the precipice.
“Tech moguls and elaborate terrorist groups. Those sorts of people.”
