Chapter 12 - The Web Unravels
By Thursday afternoon, Daniel’s private investigative team had established full electronic surveillance on Victor Vance’s financial activities in downtown Chicago.
Ethan sat beside me in my home office, reviewing the digital paper trail connecting Victor Vance to Brittany’s former real estate transactions.
“Mom,” Ethan said, his voice tight with anger as he pointed at a line item on the screen. “Victor Vance was the anonymous hard-money lender who offered my marketing firm that high-interest emergency loan six months ago—the loan Brittany insisted I accept!”
“He was setting a financial snare from both sides, Ethan,” I explained calmly. “If Brittany’s frame job at the airport had succeeded, you would have defaulted on that commercial loan within sixty days. Victor Vance’s shell company would have seized your firm’s equity while Brittany liquidated my lakefront house.”
Ethan stood up from his chair, pacing near the window, his fists clenched at his sides. “We need to take this to the District Attorney right now.”
“Not yet,” I said, resting my hands flat on the desk. “Victor Vance is a seasoned fraudster. He deliberately kept his name off Brittany’s immediate text messages to avoid direct criminal liability in her trial. If we move now, his attorneys will claim he was merely a passive investor.”
“So how do we trap him?” Ethan asked, turning back to face me.
“We give him the one thing a vengeful man cannot resist,” I smiled faintly. “An invitation to finish what he started.”
I pulled out a clean sheet of letterhead from my desk drawer and began drafting a formal legal notice to the state financial oversight board, announcing an upcoming public auction of my lakefront property’s secondary development rights.
Victor Vance had spent fourteen months waiting to seize my estate.
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When the development rights were placed on the market, his offshore shell company would be forced to step into the light to place a bid—and the moment his capital touched a domestic clearinghouse, the federal wire fraud statutes would lock around his neck.
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