The days following their decision to investigate actively were tense and exhausting. Lucien had his team of forensic accountants working around the clock, digging through decades of corporate filings and financial records. Eleanor had tripled security protocols, with rotating teams watching both Ava and Lucien at all hours. And Ava found herself drawn deeper into the investigation, spending evenings in Lucien's office poring over documents that painted an increasingly disturbing picture.
On Thursday evening, five days after receiving the threatening package, Lucien called Ava into his office looking more animated than she'd seen him in days.
"I found something," he said without preamble. "About the Serpent."
Ava closed the door behind her and settled into the chair across from his desk. "What kind of something?"
"Not just a cryptic warning." He pulled up a scanned document on his monitor—an old partnership agreement from the early days of Drake Industries. "This is from when my father first founded the company. I've been through it a hundred times over the years, but I was always looking at the primary partners, the people whose names were prominently featured."
"But there's someone else," Ava guessed.
"Look at page twelve, section seven." He turned the monitor so she could see clearly. "Silent partner provisions. The company had a third investor who provided significant capital but requested complete anonymity. No public acknowledgment, no board position, no visibility in any corporate materials."
Ava read through the dense legal language, her pulse quickening. "The silent partner had veto power over major financial decisions. That's unusual."
"Very unusual. And look at the compensation structure—they received a percentage of all revenue, not just profits. Which means they were guaranteed income regardless of how the company performed."
"That's not how investment usually works."
"No, it's not. It's how protection money works. Or money laundering." Lucien highlighted another section. "And here—the termination clause. The silent partner could withdraw at any time with full compensation for projected future earnings. But if the company tried to terminate the partnership, they'd face 'significant financial and legal consequences.'"
"That sounds like a threat," Ava said quietly.
"That sounds like a contract drafted by someone with leverage who wanted to make sure they couldn't be pushed out." Lucien pulled up another document—this one a handwritten note from his father, dated about a year before the company's collapse. "I found this in the boxes of personal papers I inherited. I didn't understand the context before, but now..."
Ava leaned forward to read:
Met with S again today. He's becoming more demanding, wants greater access to financial systems. Claims it's for efficiency, but I know better. David warned me months ago that we were being used for something darker than investment returns. I didn't want to believe him, but I'm starting to see the patterns he noticed.
S operates through proxies—never directly involved, never traceable. But his influence is everywhere. He knew about the accounting discrepancies before I did. Knew about client complaints that hadn't been officially reported yet. How does he have that kind of access unless he's been monitoring us all along?
David thinks we should go to the authorities. But S has implied he has protection there too. "Many friends in many places," he said. What does that mean? How deeply embedded is he?
I'm afraid I made a deal with the devil when I took his investment. And now David is paying the price for my mistake.
"S," Ava said. "The Serpent."
"The Serpent," Lucien confirmed. "My father's name for the silent partner who'd become more of a puppetmaster. Someone who'd embedded themselves so deeply in the company's operations that extraction was impossible."
"And when your father tried to investigate the money laundering, when my father tried to expose what was happening—"
"The Serpent protected his interests by eliminating the problems." Lucien's voice was flat, controlled, but she could see the fury beneath the surface. "Your father was forced to create the laundering systems. My father discovered them and tried to shut them down. Both became liabilities."
Ava felt sick thinking about how thoroughly the Serpent had controlled the situation. "Do you have any idea who he actually is?"
"I've been trying to figure that out for years." Lucien pulled up a complex diagram on his screen—a web of shell companies and corporate connections. "These are all the businesses that showed similar patterns to the money laundering operation at Drake Industries. Different names, different industries, but the same structural signatures that your father's systems used."
There were dozens of companies, spread across multiple states and countries. Tech firms, real estate holdings, import/export businesses—all legitimate-seeming operations that could theoretically be used to move money from illegal sources into clean investments.
"This is just what I've been able to identify," Lucien said. "There are probably many more that have covered their tracks better. But what's interesting is the timeline."
He highlighted several companies in red. "These all collapsed spectacularly within months of each other, about seven years ago. Bankruptcy filings, asset liquidation, executives fleeing to avoid prosecution. It looked like a wave of corporate failures during an economic downturn."
"But it was something else."
"I think it was the Serpent abandoning old operations and moving to new ones. Getting rid of structures that might have been compromised or noticed by investigators. Shedding his skin, just like my father warned."
Ava studied the pattern, seeing the ruthless efficiency of it. "He sacrifices entire companies rather than risk exposure. Lets innocent employees and investors lose everything while he moves to fresh operations that can't be connected to the old ones."
"Exactly. And here—" Lucien highlighted several more companies, these in green, "—these are current operations I've identified using similar patterns. They're all less than five years old, all in growth industries, all positioned to be extremely profitable if used for legitimate business or money laundering."
"He's still operating," Ava breathed. "After all these years, after killing our fathers, after sending threatening packages—he's still running the same schemes."
"With apparent impunity." Lucien's frustration was evident. "I've sent this information to federal investigators, to financial crimes units, even to journalists who specialize in corporate corruption. Nothing sticks. Either the evidence isn't strong enough, or the right people are being paid to look the other way, or—"
His phone rang, cutting off his explanation. He glanced at the screen and his expression shifted to something grimmer. "It's Marcus, my lead investigator. He's been tracking current activity."
He answered on speaker. "Marcus. What do you have?"
"Sir, you need to see this." Marcus's voice was tight with tension. "I was monitoring the companies on your watch list, looking for unusual activity. One of them—Meridian Tech Solutions—just filed for emergency bankruptcy protection about an hour ago."
Lucien straightened in his chair. "Meridian was one of the green companies. I flagged it last month as potentially part of the current operation."
"I know. And the bankruptcy filing matches the pattern exactly—sudden collapse, assets being liquidated to offshore entities, executive team scattered. It's the same playbook that was used on those companies seven years ago."
"Send me everything you have," Lucien ordered.
"Already on its way. But sir, there's something else. The timing of this collapse—it's within forty-eight hours of when you started your public audit announcement. That's not coincidence."
Ice formed in Ava's stomach. Their plan to make themselves visible, to force the Serpent's hand—it was working. But the cost was another company destroyed, potentially hundreds of jobs lost, more innocent people caught in the crossfire.
"You think our investigation triggered this?" Lucien asked.
"I think someone is cutting ties with potentially compromised operations," Marcus replied. "Getting rid of anything that might connect to the old Drake Industries patterns before you can find the links. Sir, I don't want to be alarmist, but this suggests whoever you're dealing with has resources and reach we haven't fully appreciated. They're willing to sacrifice millions in operational losses to stay ahead of your investigation."
"Understood. Keep monitoring the other companies on the list. If there are more collapses coming, I want advance warning."
"Will do. And sir? Be careful. If they're willing to burn down entire companies to cover their tracks, they won't hesitate to remove more direct threats."
Lucien ended the call and sat back in his chair, his face grim. "They found another one."
Ava felt the weight of what that meant settling over her. "Another company bankrupted using the same patterns."
"The Serpent is active," Lucien said quietly. "Not just threatening us from the shadows, but actively destroying evidence, covering tracks, eliminating anything that might lead back to him."
"Because we're getting close," Ava realized. "The public audit announcement, our investigation—we've spooked him enough that he's willing to sacrifice operational assets."
"Which means we're onto something real. Something worth protecting at enormous cost." Lucien pulled up the files Marcus had just sent. "Meridian Tech Solutions. Founded four years ago, rapid growth in cloud computing services, recently secured several major government contracts."
"Government contracts," Ava repeated. "That's perfect for money laundering. Legitimate revenue streams that are complex enough to hide irregular transactions."
"And now it's all being dismantled within forty-eight hours." Lucien scrolled through the bankruptcy filing. "Look at the asset liquidation schedule. Everything of value is being sold to shell companies in offshore jurisdictions. By the time any investigation could follow the money trail, it'll be buried under layers of international corporate structures."
"Can we stop it? Freeze the assets or get a court order?"
"On what grounds? As far as any regulatory body is concerned, this is just an unfortunate business failure. We'd need concrete evidence of criminal activity to intervene, and by the time we gathered that evidence, everything would already be gone."
Ava felt frustration building in her chest. "So we just watch him destroy companies and ruin lives to cover his tracks?"
"We document everything and hope that the pattern is obvious enough that eventually someone with actual authority will notice." Lucien's voice carried the weight of years of trying and failing to get justice. "But the reality is, the Serpent has been doing this for decades. He knows how to work within legal frameworks, how to make everything look legitimate enough to avoid serious scrutiny."
"Until someone looks closely enough to see the patterns," Ava said. "Your father did. My father did. And now we are."
"And look what happened to them." Lucien met her eyes seriously. "Ava, I need you to understand what we're dealing with. This isn't just a criminal—it's someone with institutional protection, with the resources to destroy companies and eliminate people, with enough reach that our investigation triggered a multi-million dollar response within two days."
"I understand." And she did. Understood that they were facing something far more dangerous and entrenched than a simple criminal organization. "But we're still going to keep investigating."
"Are we?" It wasn't a challenge, just a genuine question. "Because I'll understand if you want to back out. This has gotten exponentially more dangerous in the last forty-eight hours."
Ava thought about her father, coerced into participating in crimes he never wanted to commit. About Lucien's father, driven to suicide by guilt over failing to protect his partner. About all the innocent people at Meridian Tech Solutions who were about to lose their jobs because they'd unknowingly been part of a money laundering operation.
"We keep investigating," she said firmly. "Because if we don't, the Serpent wins. Again. And I'm tired of him winning."
Lucien studied her face for a long moment, and she saw something shift in his expression—fear warring with admiration, the need to protect her conflicting with respect for her courage.
"Then we keep investigating," he agreed. "But we do it smart. No more public announcements, no more obvious moves that telegraph our intentions. We go quiet, dig deep, and find something concrete enough that even the Serpent's protection can't shield him."
"How do we do that when everyone who's tried before ended up dead?"
"By learning from their mistakes. My father and yours tried to expose the operation while they were inside it, while they were vulnerable to retaliation. We're outside now, protected by resources and security they didn't have. We can investigate from a distance, follow threads they couldn't access."
"And if the Serpent comes after us directly?"
Lucien's expression went cold, hard, showing the ruthless businessman who'd built an empire from the ruins of his father's failure. "Then we make sure we're not as easy to eliminate as the others were. Eleanor's security protocols, legal protections, enough public visibility that our deaths would trigger investigations the Serpent couldn't control."
It was a grim calculation—making themselves valuable enough alive and dangerous enough dead that killing them would cost more than letting them continue investigating. Not a guarantee of safety, but better odds than their fathers had faced.
"One more thing," Ava said, a thought occurring to her. "The photograph they sent—it showed they've been watching me, following me to my mother's hospital visits. If they wanted to threaten me, they could have approached directly. Could have made it clear they know where I am and when I'm vulnerable."
"But they didn't," Lucien said slowly, following her logic. "They just documented it. Proved they could reach you if they wanted to."
"Which means they don't want to. Yet." Ava felt a chill run down her spine. "They want us to know we're being watched, want us to feel vulnerable. But they're not ready to act. Why?"
"Because dead investigators draw attention, but scared investigators just stop investigating." Lucien's eyes sharpened with understanding. "The threats are meant to make us back off voluntarily, to decide it's not worth the risk."
"So the more we push, the more likely they are to escalate from threats to action."
"Probably." He stood and moved to the windows, staring out at Manhattan's evening lights. "But I've been living with these threats for years, Ava. Always looking over my shoulder, always wondering if today would be the day they decided I knew too much. I'm tired of being afraid of shadows."
Ava joined him at the windows, standing close enough that their shoulders almost touched. "Then we find the Serpent and drag him into the light. Make him visible instead of letting him operate in shadows."
"Together," Lucien said quietly.
"Together," she agreed.
They stood in silence for a moment, two people bound together by tragedy and now by shared purpose. The city stretched out below them, millions of people going about their lives unaware of the shadows moving through their world, the crimes being committed in the name of profit and power.
And somewhere out there, the Serpent was watching, waiting, deciding whether these two investigators were worth the cost of elimination.