Chapter 3 - KAYLA’S BROTHER HAD NEVER WORKED FOR GUNTHER, BUT HIS NAME WAS ALREADY INSIDE THE EMPIRE
Kayla stared at the badge report.
“No.”
Gunther had expected panic.
Instead, her face turned angry.
“Sam has never been here.”
“The credential has his name.”
“I can read.”
“He ever work for Woods companies?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
Gunther saw it.
“Kayla.”
“He worked at Northstar Distribution.”
Victor looked up sharply.
Gunther noticed.
“What?”
Victor shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Try again.”
“Northstar used to subcontract one of our warehouse routes.”
Kayla turned.
“Used to?”
Victor answered carefully.
“Years ago.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
Sam’s accident happened four years earlier.
Gunther’s attention sharpened.
“What happened to your brother?”
Kayla went quiet.
She had worked for Gunther three years and he had never asked.
That fact suddenly embarrassed him.
“Forklift collision.”
“Where?”
“Northstar’s River Street warehouse.”
“Cause?”
“Officially?”
She almost laughed.
“A blind corner.”
“And unofficially?”
“Sam said the brakes failed.”
Victor stopped moving.
Gunther looked at him.
“What?”
Victor rubbed jaw.
“That warehouse had maintenance complaints.”
“How do you know?”
“I handled vendor transition.”
“Was Northstar ours?”
“No.”
“Was it connected to us?”
“Indirectly.”
Gunther stood.
“Victor.”
Victor sighed.
“Gunther Woods Holdings owned nineteen percent through a private logistics fund.”
Kayla stared.
“What?”
Gunther did too.
He did not remember that investment.
His empire had hundreds of minority interests.
That explanation suddenly sounded obscene.
“Was I told about the accident?”
Victor said:
“Probably in quarterly safety reporting.”
“Probably?”
“You don’t read every subcontractor injury.”
Gunther’s face hardened.
“I will now.”
Kayla looked at him.
“That doesn’t fix Sam.”
“No.”
Good.
No fake absolution.
She turned to Victor.
“Who paid settlement?”
“Northstar’s insurer.”
“Wrong.”
Everyone looked at her.
Kayla knew the number.
$240,000.
Most went to surgery and debt.
But paperwork identified payment origin as Bracken Employee Relief Trust.
Victor’s face changed.
Gunther noticed.
“What is Bracken?”
“Old employee-support vehicle.”
“Whose?”
Victor hesitated.
“Woods-controlled.”
Kayla stared at Gunther.
“You paid us.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It is also true.”
She looked away.
Gunther understood her anger.
Money had entered her life anonymously from a company partly responsible for conditions that injured Sam.
Then Gunther’s security analyst returned with archived Northstar records.
Sam Hughes was not just an injured warehouse employee.
He had filed a complaint eleven days before accident.
Brake failures.
Falsified maintenance logs.
Night-shift cargo moved without manifests.
Then accident.
The complaint disappeared.
His employee file was later marked:
UNRELIABLE / TERMINATED FOR SAFETY VIOLATIONS.
Kayla’s jaw trembled.
“They blamed him.”
“Yes.”
“He told me they did.”
She sat.
“I thought he was embarrassed.”
Gunther looked at her.
“What did he say?”
“That he reported bad brakes.”
“That supervisor laughed.”
“That after accident they told him if he sued, they’d prove he caused it.”
“What supervisor?”
“Derrick Moss.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Gunther saw.
“You know him.”
Victor said:
“He works for us now.”
Silence.
“Where?”
“Port security.”
Kayla laughed once.
The sound contained no humor.
“The man who covered my brother’s safety complaint now works security for the billionaire whose company secretly owned his warehouse.”
Gunther did not defend.
She continued:
“And somehow my brother’s name is on a badge used to enter your bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Gunther looked at Victor.
“Bring Moss.”
“Police?”
“Not yet.”
Kayla immediately said:
“Police.”
Gunther turned.
“Moss is internal.”
“Sam was internal too, apparently.”
That landed.
Gunther considered.
Then nodded.
“We involve police.”
Victor looked surprised.
Gunther ignored him.
Derrick Moss was brought in for questioning by county detectives and company counsel.
He denied everything.
Denied falsifying maintenance.
Denied Sam’s complaint.
Denied knowing Kayla.
Then investigators showed badge.
His face changed.
Tiny.
Enough.
“Where did you get Samuel Hughes’s information?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who created credential?”
“Not me.”
System logs showed badge activated three months earlier.
Same month Kayla’s employee benefits were renewed.
Who authorized?
Head of internal security administration.
Victor Romano.
Again.
Victor stared.
“This is fabricated.”
Could be.
System audit showed authorization from his account at 3:14 a.m.
Victor had been in Las Vegas that night.
Conference.
Public photographs.
Maybe account cloned.
Someone repeatedly wanted evidence pointing to Victor.
Why?
Gunther’s suspicion grew.
Then Kayla’s toxic exposure source surfaced.
Her gray uniforms.
One shirt tested positive.
Arsenic concentrated at inside collar.
Not poison consumed.
Dermal exposure over repeated wear plus possible hand-to-mouth contamination.
Someone had dusted uniforms.
Five sets.
Stored in staff laundry.
Why?
Slow sickness.
Fatigue.
Hair loss.
Eventually quit.
Or worse.
Kayla looked at Gunther.
“Someone wanted me gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why wait three years?”
Good question.
Then Sam called.
Kayla answered.
His voice sounded terrified.
“Kay?”
“What?”
“Someone broke into my apartment.”
Her face changed.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“What’s missing?”
Silence.
“Sam?”
“The blue folder.”
Kayla frowned.
“What blue folder?”
“The one from Northstar.”
She stood.
“You told me you threw everything away.”
“I lied.”
Gunther looked at Victor.
Sam continued over speaker.
“I kept copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“Maintenance reports.”
“Cargo logs.”
“And a picture.”
“What picture?”
“I took it after my accident.”
Gunther’s stomach tightened.
“Of who?”
Sam said:
“Victor Romano.”
Silence.
Victor went white.
“Bullshit.”
Sam heard.
“Is he there?”
“Yes.”
“Kayla, get away from him.”
Victor stood.
“I never met your brother.”
Sam’s voice shook.
“You were at Northstar three nights after I got hurt.”
“I saw you.”
“Why?”
Victor looked at Gunther.
He stopped.
There.
He remembered.
“I was there.”
Gunther’s voice became quiet.
“You just said you never met him.”
“I didn’t meet him.”
“Why were you at warehouse?”
Victor’s face hardened.
“Because you sent me.”
Gunther froze.
“I did what?”
“Northstar was moving unregistered cargo.”
“You ordered an internal audit.”
Gunther searched memory.
Four years ago.
Port dispute.
Missing containers.
Yes.
He had sent Victor to shut operation.
“What did you find?”
Victor looked toward Kayla.
“Human trafficking.”
The room went still.
Not drugs.
Not stolen electronics.
People.
Women moved through freight containers.
Northstar management involved.
Gunther had ordered operation closed and information sent to federal contacts anonymously because exposure would implicate Woods holdings.
He remembered.
He had also ordered the investment unwound.
What he had not known:
Sam Hughes had discovered part of it before Gunther’s audit.
The brake failure may have been retaliation.
Victor said:
“I found a maintenance complaint with Sam’s name.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I couldn’t expose investigation.”
“So you paid settlement through Bracken.”
“Yes.”
Kayla stared.
“You knew.”
Victor looked ashamed.
“I knew your brother had been hurt after reporting.”
“And you never told us why.”
“No.”
“You paid us.”
“Yes.”
“Then gave me a job?”
Victor looked at Gunther.
Gunther froze.
“What?”
Kayla slowly turned.
“Who referred me to Woods Estate?”
She had applied through a staffing agency.
But agency called her first.
Victor closed eyes.
“I did.”
Gunther’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because Sam’s sister needed stable insurance.”
“You placed her inside my house without telling me?”
“Yes.”
Kayla’s face emptied.
“So my whole job…”
“No,” Victor said quickly.
“You were qualified.”
“That is not the point.”
“I know.”
She backed away.
Three years of believing she earned safe job.
Partly true.
Also engineered.
Again, good intention becoming control.
Gunther looked at Victor.
“Why is someone framing you now?”
Victor shook head.
“I don’t know.”
Then the analyst placed another recovered file.
The photo Sam had described had been backed up automatically.
Victor at Northstar.
Beside him:
Derrick Moss.
And a third man.
Gunther recognized instantly.
His own younger half-brother.
Caleb Woods.
Caleb had supposedly been in London four years ago.
He had never been part of Gunther’s criminal organization.
He ran Woods Civic Development.
Charity boards.
Real-estate redevelopment.
Clean side of family.
At least, that was what Gunther believed.
Victor whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
Gunther stared.
Caleb stood beside the warehouse where trafficked women had been moved.
Beside the supervisor who covered Sam’s complaint.
Three days after Sam nearly died.
May you like
And suddenly the person framing Victor had a possible reason.
If Victor took blame, nobody would look at the brother Gunther had spent his entire life protecting from the dirty parts of the Woods empire.
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