The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 81

Chapter 532.

Chapter 53-2

Clam

Locke and I spin around together. Dad is leaning casually against the doorframe, coffee mug in one hand, studying the hurricane we’ve created out of his office with the expression of a man who’s trying very hard not to smile.

“…or you’ve found something that I’m really not gonna like.”

For a second, neither of us says anything, then Locke looks at me. A silent invitation:

Your discovery, baby. You explain it.

I take a slow breath. “Dad…”

He straightens immediately. “What is it, sweetheart?”

I walk over to the whiteboard, picking up the marker that Locke abandoned a few minutes ago. “We’ve been looking at the shell companies all wrong.”

Cobra’s eyebrows knit together. “How so?”

“Because they’re not the operation.” I draw a line beneath the dates. “They’re camouflage.”

“What?” Dad says.

“Okay, look.” I point to a shipping manifest. “This is a delivery for Cobra LLC’s construction division.”

“Cobra Construction?” Dad asks. “When we bought all of that digging machinery from Michigan?”

“Yes.” I point to another page. “And this is a delivery for the bar, when you guys gutted it, renovated it and replaced all the pumps and furniture.” Another document. “This is for the garage, when you guys replaced all the hydraulic lifts.”

“Okay.” Dad frowns. “These shipments are all ours.”

“Exactly.” I look at him. “They’re all legit through Cobra LLC. And every major payment Knox makes through one of his shell companies happens within twenty-four hours of one of your commercial freight movements.”

Dad’s expression hardens. “So?”

“So Nobody questions expected freight,” I say, tapping the manifest. “If we have twenty containers arriving, Knox adds his container. If the garage gets a delivery of lifts, he slips another truck into the schedule.”

Understanding dawns slowly across Dad’s face, then disappears beneath something much darker. “He hid his dirty shipments inside my company’s legit ones?”

I nod. “We think so.”

“See, we’ve spent all this time trying to nail down Knox’s illegal shipping routes, but that’s been wrong.” Locke folds his arms. “He never needed fake routes, Prez. He never needed to create a transport network. You already had everything in place, and he just piggybacked on it.”

Dad doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. He simply stares at the whiteboard as though willing it to be wrong.

1/2

Chapter 532.

Clar

Then he walks slowly to the conference table and picks up one of the manifests. His eyes move over the dates, then back to the whiteboard. “You sure, Zara?”

I don’t hesitate. “I’ve checked it six times.”

Dad lets out a long, controlled breath, then he places the paperwork down with exquisite care. Too much care. I watch fury gather behind my father’s eyes like a storm rolling across dark water.

“So, when my company built schools,” he says, his voice almost frighteningly quiet. “That fucker used those materials deliveries to move his fentanyl supplies, the drug that thousands of teens a year overdose on. When we built that new cancer wing in the hospital where your mother died, and delivered all that medical equipment and machinery to save people’s lives, he used those shipments to make poison that fucking kills people.”

Neither Locke nor I answer. I mean, what on earth can we say?

“He didn’t just build a drug operation,” Dad says at last, every word clipped with terrifying precision. “He built it by forging and hiding behind my daughter’s name – and using my company’s good name.”

The silence that follows is absolute.

Dad looks at me now. “What do you need, sweetheart? To find out more?”

“The records of every freight Cobra LLC has moved in the last four years, no matter what business it was for. The construction company, the bar, the garage… all of it.”

Dad’s eyes flash with understanding. “Since you and Knox got engaged, and we merged the Grinning Skulls MC interests with Knox and the Night Howlers?”

“Exactly,” I say. “I suspect he started the shady stuff from the jump.”

“You’ll get every single record,” Dad says. He looks hard at Locke, then at me, and his eyes are cold, black, bottomless night. “I really think this is it, Zara. I think you’ve found it.”

“Well, it’s a start,” I say. “It’ll probably unravel quickly from here.”

“I knew it, though. I knew it the day that you walked back into this clubhouse, and told me about the forged signatures, and all the bank accounts and companies in your name.”

I c**k my head. “Knew what, Dad?”

“That Knox’s biggest mistake wasn’t using you, sweetheart.” Dad pauses, then gives me one of his rare smiles. “It was underestimating you.”

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