CHAPTER 271: LOSING TRUST

"You know what we’re looking for people!"

"Let’s go on there and get it!"

"Darren Steele has no place to run now."

The cold morning air hung thick with tension as Lilian Greaves stood outside the massive, slate-gray gates of the Navarro Warehouse.

Armed agents flanked her, a printed warrant in hand, and a heart pounding like a war drum in her chest. This was it — her break, her lead, the thread that would unravel Darren Steele once and for all.

She had a big proud smile on her face, like she knew she had already won. The security tried to stop them but they had no choice because of the warrant.

The Nevarro warehouse facility was now Agent Greaves’s football field.

The gate opened slowly, groaning like an ancient vault. Inside, rows of steel racks loomed under fluorescent lighting, buzzing faintly. The warehouse seemed unusually pristine — too pristine. Lilian narrowed her eyes.

"Begin the sweep," she commanded.

Her team moved in, agents fanning out with practiced precision. Rivera and Cho moved beside her, laptops in hand, scanning QR codes and manifest logs.

Minutes passed. Then hours. What started as hopeful resolve began to sag into confusion.

"Ma’am," Cho called softly, drawing her toward a terminal. "All the shipping manifests here are dated, but they’re filed under third-party storage contracts. Nothing connects directly to Steele Investments."

Lilian frowned. "That can’t be right. There has to be a hidden server hub here. Something."

They checked the basement. Empty. They checked the back rooms. Fully stocked with legally registered mining hardware, all tagged and accounted for. They even checked for false walls.

Nothing.

Not a single anomaly.

In the small operations room upstairs, where they had hoped to find even a single damning evidence against the young billionaire, it was a brutal dead end.

Lilian’s tech team logged into the local server, only to find a perfectly sanitized data system — no sign of Navarro anomalies. In fact, the only strange thing was how clean everything was. Too clean.

"No, no..." Lilian whispered. "There’s nothing here."

Cho looked at her and shrugged. "Darren Steele did say that they haven’t started operations yet in Nevarro."

"What? You believe that? He’s lying!" She shook her head in disbelief. "They wiped this place," she muttered. "No. Worse. They staged it."

In the legal offices, all the supposed ’fake’ companies were tied to registered shell entities routed through legal pipelines so thoroughly documented that even Greaves had to pause.

Cho returned with another update. "We traced Nalu Stream’s transactions. It’s clean. Perfectly clean. Cross-jurisdictional filings in three countries. Even got UN blockchain certification."

Lilian stared blankly at him. "UN certification? How’s that possible?"

"Apparently it is. Looks like it was filed six months ago," Cho confirmed. "Backdated, but the timestamps hold."

Lilian was losing her mind. Rage started to surge. Every step she took slammed into a legal firewall. There were layered protections everywhere, and they were heartlessly precise — NDAs, sanitized filings, polished timestamps — all designed to slow her just enough.

To stop her even.

"I spent hours working on this. I had to argue with the judge to get it signed," she whispered, her eyes dilated. "I’m chasing ghosts."

As her frustration mounted, her team began whispering behind her back. Some exchanged worried glances. Others questioned her judgment in hushed tones. She’d pushed TALON to its limits. Burned political capital. Broken protocol. Now it felt like the trail was evaporating.

Lilian walked past the agents that had come with her and entered into her temporary command tent. An angry yell left her and she slammed her fist on the table, sunk her fingers into her hair before slamming down on a chair.

She stayed there, face covered with her palms. Then, ding ding! A call.

Lilian gulped. She knew who that was going to be. Now red-eyed, clutching a mug of coffee like it might steady her shaking hands, she picked her phone and opened the text message.

FROM: Deputy Director Caldridge

SUBJECT: TALON Oversight Review

Lilian,

We are receiving negative feedback from both our oversight board and external observers regarding the current scope of TALON. You will provide a full justification memo by end of day explaining expenditures, target prioritization, and anticipated yield.

I remind you — this task was delegated, not commissioned. Do not make us regret our faith. YOUR JOB IS ON THE LINE HERE!

She read it twice. Then thrice. Her heart sinking deeper each time. Even he was turning the screws now. He was supposed to have her back! And he’s making everything so much worse!

She slammed the phone, thankfully, it didn’t shatter. But even that frustrated Lilian the more.

That smug bastard who played on her father’s pain. Darren fucking Steele. He had her in circles. Had routed her team into legitimate entities, operating under the veil of compliance. It felt like the closer she got, the more the trail disappeared.

Fuck. Fuck.

’I’m losing my mind because of this guy.’

When she came out of the tent, she saw how still the room had become. No noise. No typing. No radio.

Her team had stopped believing.

She clenched her jaw. "We press on. Cho, did you get me that information I asked about his digital assets? I want you to find me anything. There’s no such thing as a man that clean."

"But Agen—"

"Just find me something, Cho!" she demanded, raising her voice in anger.

Everyone turned to look at her. They were all accusing and fed up in their expressions. Lilian saw it. No one believed her anymore. They all saw that she was turning mad.

She was losing the trust of her team.

-----

Even Darren had said it:

"She will end up losing the trust of her team."

Vance looked at his client, accepting that he might have overreacted. Darren had this all planned out. But still... "It’s high-wire. If she uncovers our shells first and misinterprets them..."

"That’s where you come in, Vance. Daisy," Darren said to his legal team. "Your job is to ensure everything we’ve done with Black Cipher, Voltaire, Nalu Stream, all of it, remains demonstrably legal. Meticulous documentation. Transparent filings where required. We cooperate just enough with Greaves’s lawful requests to maintain the facade of openness, while vigorously defending against any overreach that might stumble onto Caldridge before she’s dug deep enough to see the bigger picture. We slow her down on our front, forcing her to dig wider, deeper, into the DFI’s own backyard."

He looked at Sandy and Amelia. "Finance, Strategy – you ensure our real operations – the Pantheon Club, our legitimate Bitcoin mining, our traditional investments – run smoother than ever. We need pristine, above-board profitability. It’s our shield. The cleaner we look where we are visible, the more Greaves’s obsession with shadows looks like... well, obsession."

Finally, he turned to Kara and Rachel. "You two will focus on Tech, Legal Ops. Your job is containment and controlled leakage. Kara, maintain the decoys. If Greaves probes Navarro again, let her find the paperwork error, let it frustrate her. Rachel, be ready. When Greaves inevitably starts subpoenaing third parties – banks, shipping companies, old partners – we need to be positioned. We might ’accidentally’ point her legal team towards a bank in Liechtenstein Caldridge uses, or an obscure property holding company linked to his aliases. Tiny breadcrumbs, Rachel. Plausibly deniable, but irresistible to a hunter on the scent."

Darren leaned forward, his hands flat on the cool obsidian. "Lilian Greaves thinks she’s chasing a phantom criminal in me. She’s wrong. She’s chasing a phantom lead right into the heart of a real criminal embedded in her own department. My provocation was only a misdirection. I gave her a personal reason to be relentless, ensuring she’ll follow the Talmor/Navarro thread – the false trail – with everything she has, straight into Caldridge’s labyrinth."