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I
have have been waiting for your call all night, William! What happened? How did it go?" Angela asked all in one breath.
Will confessed to her.
"Yes, thank you so much, Will; I will need more favors from you in the future. The likes of this would continue. And William, please promise me that you won't let this go. You can't bury it. Just give me two more weeks," Angela said.
"I'll be waiting as long as you're certain. And you know me, I won't give up without a fight," Will said and ended the call.
Later that night, Angela messaged May to forward her the list of all of Alveris' accomplices that were spotted with him in the past month or repeatedly in the past year or more.
Alveris was spotted with more than seventy different people in the past month, some of them celebrities, some of the family, and some of them just regular men. Out of these people, May had narrowed down all people that could be providing protection to Alveris and helping him cut corners. These were six influential people belonging to either the government or the intelligence or the Mafias. Alveris would keep getting away until he was cut loose from the support of these people.
Angela decided to get on a video call with both May and David, and they started their search to identify the men. "Okay, so Angela and Toby, have you received the list of six people that I sent?" May asked.
"Yes, we have it here. Let's start off with the women. One of them is the congresswoman from the Bronx. Her name is Jean Goldsmith," Angela read off the email sent to her.
"Yeah, so, Alveris supported her during her last candidacy, and that's how they have an alliance. That explains why Alveris is able to make transports late at the light by using the ports illegally and making use of private cargos. Ms. Jean here either buried such reports or has given him the permission to do so," May read out to her.
"So, how do we stop her?" Toby asked.
"Well, I believe I could forward her info to Will. He is part of the intelligence and the FBI. He could tell her to back off, or else she loses her position if we go public with these details," Angela proposes.
"Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of installing security cameras inside her house and then spying on her to find any proof of illegal activity, but yeah, your strategy is way better," May says.
"Alright, I'm on it," Angela says. Angela drafted a text to send to Will. She attached a picture of Jean and typed, "Jean Goldsmith, a congresswoman from the Bronx. The port was located in the Bronx area, which comes under her jurisdiction. I am certain she allowed the port to be used after hours and for illegal cargos to be housed and loaded. You need to talk to her."
"Alright, moving on, we have Ryan Fuseli. I know this guy. He has been accused of misconduct by children and women all across the city of New York. But since he's the brother of the mayor, no one touches him. I don't know what Alveris needs from him; maybe the connection to the mayor is enough. Because other than that, this guy is high all the time. He's not even in his senses to help himself, let alone help anyone else," David announced.
“Well, then. I guess we can use the cases to bring him down. And the connection to the mayor is more than enough to get anyone out of the picture. So, he must have offered something to Alveris,” Angela said.
"Hmm, maybe I can find a victim of his and help them get a good lawyer to fight this moron. That will keep his hands busy," David said.
"Wait, I know one of his victims. Charlotte Beth. She's an actress. She's been fighting him already. Maybe we can get her support from the industry to back her? And get her resources. She's not been getting any roles or any work lately either. And if this guy isn't even sober, we can probably get him to jail with little effort," May suggested.
"You're right; I'm messaging my assistant to get her everything she needs to make her case iron clad and sending messages to friends from my industry to see what they can do," David said.
"Alright, next up is Liam Brathwaite. He is a judge in the district court and will be giving bar exams to become a judge in the high court. Wow, I can't believe this man is on the list. I look up to him. In fact, I respect him quite a lot. He is the youngest, best lawyer in our fraternity and the youngest to become a judge.
I often read his judgments to understand how courts give verdicts and how someone can be so just. May, this has to be a mistake. I've met this guy. He's one of our very best," Angela said in disbelief. She couldn't believe that the biggest name in the law industry was one of Alveris' connections.
She really wanted to convince herself that it was a mistake, but then again, even in the field of law, there was deception and there was corruption.
"Same! He was at Stanford a week ago, singing praises of his good work and giving us all this valuable advice. He's a god to lost people for all his NGOs and climate initiatives. How on earth will we go against him?" Toby interjected, also taken aback.
"I'm sorry to tell you, Angela, but this is no mistake. I, too, was surprised to see him; he's probably the most public person on this list. You often see him giving motivational talks, being called on talk shows, and leading humanitarian initiatives. Then, how could such a man end up on the list? But alas, everyone has skeletons in their closets.
Turns out, Alveris helped him clear the bar exams, and on tips from Alveris, he was able to pass judgments on a lot of cases, which is exactly why he is letting many of Alveris' men off the hook. That's right; you probably haven't gone through all his cases, because I have in the past few days," May told Angela.
"He's a global superstar. I'm sure he has had help from all around. When one person goes up and gets the limelight, others attach their hopes to him so that he gets them by, too. That's exactly what Alveris did with us, so I'm not surprised," David said as he reflected.
"Fortunately for us, I knew this was going to be a hard case to crack, so I put Joshua on his back two weeks ago. Joshua found his exchanges with a Russian warlord who has asked him to help a Russian spy cross the border into Canada. I have the exchanges with me, and I have prepared a plan to scare the life out of this man. Do I have your consent to go forth with the plan?" May asked everyone.
"Yes, please," David urged her.
"Alright, next we have Mathew Carlos. He's the right hand to the chief of NYPD. He's one of the nominees, in fact, to become the next chief. Pretty obvious why Alveris wants him on the side. But what about Mathew? Why does he want Alveris on his side?" Angela asked as she read out the details, yet again from the email.
"Money. He gets the money. He has shares apparently in Alveris' business. Moreover, cocaine. Alveris has access to all kinds of drugs, even opioids. Alveris is notorious for proving opioids like fentanyl to all high-class parties. But cocaine is the main reason these two are connected. Apparently, Mathew here has a serious cocaine addiction, and Alveris provides him with the best of all drugs and cocaine.
These two areas are close to each other as an apple is to its seed. In fact, I think he would be the first person to call the FBI to drop the cases. So, withdrawing his support would be hard and necessary, but luckily for us, his wife runs many of these elite circles, and she has been found defrauding money, robbing diamonds and other pieces of precious jewelry; in fact, on one occasion, she stole a rare $20 million vase from the Met museum, and the two of them have it hidden in the basement of their house.
When the vase went missing, it was marked as being in inventory for repair, and since then, it has been marked so. However, the real one is in their basement. I'm going to be using proof of his wife's Ponzi schemes and money scams to get him to stop supporting Alveris," May declared her plan.
"Wow, May. You really have done your work here. Remarkable planning, I must say your preparation is very foolproof," David said, thoroughly impressed with May's research and plotting.
"Thank you, but I can't take all the credit. I had your whole team doing all this work for me," May explained.
"I'm quite impressed as well," Angela explained. "Anyway, last up, we have Josephine Stuart and Emanuel Term," Angela read out.
"Okay, these people are last for a reason. Josephine Stuart is the head of a bank. She has allowed Alveris and his accomplices to defraud multiple times. She has allowed them to transfer and accept money from offshore accounts.
She has allowed them to commit wire fraud. The list goes on. Apparently, in 2012, after her father, the ex-CEO and founder of the bank, passed away, Josephine's only older brother was supposed to inherit the bank and the title. However, Josephine wanted that for herself. She seemed to get help from Alveris, and thus, got the CEO title for herself," May elaborated on what went down.
"And what happened to the brother?" Angela asked.
"The brother and his family, a wife and two kids, died in a yacht accident," May concluded.
There was a momentary pause as everyone went into a deafening silence. As all four of them were during planning the downfall of Alveris, they had forgotten how truly powerful he was. And how despicable he was. He could kill anyone or anything that stood in his way. It wouldn’t even take him two seconds to uproot anyone. And that is exactly when they need to bring them down.
"He's as vile as it gets. He's the scum of this planet. He's vermin. He's a parasite. This is exactly why we need to bring him down. Not only bring him down but crush his soul. He shouldn’t have any room or corner to escape. He's a demon," Toby said, with anger and disgust visible in his tone.
"So, what do we have on Josephine?" David asked, finally gathering the courage to speak after the bomb May dropped.
"There's a lot on Josephine. A lot of proof. In fact, this woman has twenty-four open cases in the court of law. Some want to sue her; some want to imprison her for a lifetime, shut down her bank, and so much more. But this woman is unperturbed. She is not bothered. There is not one weakness in her stride. Somehow nothing bothers her or affects her. She's stone cold. And she knows how to deal with everything," May said.
"Oh my. She must've fought a lot in her life for nothing to affect her anymore. But are you telling us that there is nothing we can do to stop her from supporting us?" Angela asked.
"Honestly, we can try. But I don't think it would be of any use. She would just laugh at it and then toss it away. I have studied her for the past week. Maybe we could blackmail her kids or any of her family, but this woman is made of steel.
Nothing literally bothers her. If the sun didn’t rise tomorrow, this woman would still get up and go about her day as if nothing had happened. So needless to say, we would be wasting our efforts if we went after her," May declared.
"Alright then, let's just hope she doesn't cause us too much trouble. She can hide their defrauds and their bank statements but not get Alveris and his accomplices out of handcuffs once they are caught. So, we should be good till that point," David said.
"Moving on, lastly, we have Emanuel Term. He is from Spain. He and Alveris went to school together. And the man is a ghost," May explained.
"What do you mean? The man is a ghost?" Angela asked, confused. "It is because I don't have anything on him; I don't know any of his details. Where he lives, where he goes, what he does, he's a ghost. He doesn't leave any footprints. The only thing I have on him is this picture. So, this is where I retire. I can't find anything on him, no matter how much I try. This is your job now. Yours and David's, to find out who he is," May replied.
"Emanuel. I have seen this man at one of Alveris’ parties. He is often next to him, like his shadow. I bet this man knows a lot. His face is very familiar. Let's hope I find him again," David announced.
