Melissa Mitchell screamed as she entered her kitchen and saw her ex-husband Marcus Torres sitting at her kitchen table. Seeing Marcus alone was enough to make her scream, but having him sitting in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee when she didn't think anyone was in the house was especially unnerving.
"Good morning, Sissy," Marcus said as the woman caught her breath. He used the nickname he had given her when they had begun dating. Melissa said nothing in return, just crossing her arms in from of her body. She wished she had gotten dressed instead of coming downstairs for coffee in her bathrobe.
"C'mon, now, Sissy, there is no reason to be uncivil," the tall Puerto Rican said, a wry smile crossing his face.
"You've kidnapped and are torturing my daughter. You've raped me and let your pals rape me," Melissa answered. "I think I have reason to be uncivil."
"None of that is my fault," Torres countered. "You put yourself into this position and you dragged your daughter into it as well. Now, sit down. I need a progress report."
Melissa knew her ex-husband was speaking the truth. She thought about how her carefully planned scheme had unravelled. It had started rather simple. She had used the backdoor programs Marcus had created to take advantage of certain peculiarities in the global financial system to begin taking small amounts of money from the large client she serviced as a financial manager. At first, she only planned to take enough money to pay for Susan's tuition at West Valley Academy. Graduating from that prestigious school would set up Susan for life.
But then Melissa got greedy. It started when she learned her client was actually a major drug cartel, one of the largest in the Americas. She didn't know at the time that Marcus was actually the leader of that cartel. One of the ways her firm laundered money for the cartel was by moving the money through a series of accounts, never keeping large sums of money in any one account for long. Melissa set up a series of small accounts at a bank in St. Charlantia, a small island in the Pacific that existed mainly for its beautiful beaches and very lax financial laws. She slowly began moving the cartel's money into these accounts and used Marcus' software to mask the transactions. As far as the cartel was concerned, their money was still being shuffled through the financial markets when in reality it was disappearing.
Melissa knew now her mistake was locking the accounts into Susan's name. Her daughter was the only person who could access the money. Not even Melissa was able to touch it. At the time, Melissa thought it was a brilliant move. Susan was safe at West Valley, where tight security was the norm due to the number of sons and daughters of politicians and business leaders who went to school there. If the cartel caught on, Melissa knew she would be in danger, but she thought Susan would be protected.
She was wrong. Somehow, the cartel had learned of Melissa's deception, although apparently all the knew about was the money she had taken for Susan's tuition. They had infiltrated West Valley and placed their sadistic torturer Stephen Krutz in charge of the school and Susan had been suffering ever since.
Torres woke Melissa from her thoughts. "Status report, please," he said coolly.
