Chapter 9: Victor Cass
Philip Osei held the drive for exactly four seconds before setting it on his desk and calling his assistant.
"Get me a secure laptop.
And close the door."
His assistant left.
Philip looked at Amara across the desk.
"You understand what this is," he said.
"Evidence."
"Evidence that was obtained by a private individual through undisclosed recording methods, handed to my client in a coffee shop, with no chain of custody and no legal framework." He paused.
"It is also potentially the most valuable thing in this entire case.
Those two facts are going to be in tension with each other for the next several days."
"Can we use it?"
"We can use parts of it.
Carefully.
Strategically." He folded his hands.
"The recordings that relate to your divorce — the marital assets, the hidden accounts — those are usable as supporting evidence to what Grace has already documented.
They corroborate.
They don't introduce."
"And the rest?"
"The rest goes to Hale.
Not from you.
Through me, through a specific legal channel, in a way that protects you from any claim that you were coordinating with the federal investigation."
"Dante's already going to claim that."
"Yes.
And we're going to make sure there's nothing to support it." Philip's voice was steady.
"Amara.
I need you to understand something.
Victor Cass is going to come at us hard in the next forty-eight hours.
He's going to file motions.
He's going to depose Grace.
He's going to try to make the story about how you got your information rather than what the information shows."
"Can he do that?"
"He can try.
He's done it before." Philip paused.
"He won a case three years ago by convincing a judge that a wife's forensic accountant had overstepped her access rights.
The wife lost half of what she was entitled to."
Amara was quiet.
"What's different here?" she asked.
"Grace is better than the accountant in that case.
And we have corroboration that case didn't have." He looked at the drive.
"And Victor Cass has never gone up against a client who was three weeks ahead of the man he was protecting."
The assistant returned with a laptop.
Philip plugged in the drive.
They listened for two hours.
Dante's voice filled the room.
Calm.
Specific.
Naming accounts, naming properties, naming people.
At one point he laughed — his real laugh, the one Amara had recognized at the airfield — while describing how a particular asset had been restructured so that no divorce attorney in Illinois would find it without a forensic specialist.
He had been wrong about that.
At the ninety-minute mark, a name came up that made Philip stop the recording.
He looked at Amara.
"Do you know who Raymond Chu is?" he asked.
"No."
"He's a family court judge." Philip's voice was very careful.
"He handles high-asset divorce cases in Cook County." He paused.
"Dante is describing a payment made to Raymond Chu eighteen months ago.
In exchange for a favorable ruling in an unrelated case that Dante had an interest in."
Amara stared at him.
"He bribed a judge," she said.
"He's describing bribing a judge." Philip closed the laptop.
"This doesn't go to Hale through a channel.
This goes to the federal prosecutor's office directly, today, before Victor Cass files anything else." He stood up.
"And we need to make sure that Raymond Chu is not assigned to your divorce case."
He was already reaching for his phone when his assistant knocked and opened the door.
"Mr.
Osei.
Victor Cass is downstairs.
He says he doesn't have an appointment but he'd like five minutes."
Philip looked at Amara.
She nodded.
Victor Cass walked in two minutes later.
He was in his sixties, silver-haired, the kind of man who had spent decades making rooms feel smaller when he entered them.
He looked at Amara with the expression of someone assessing a problem they expected to solve quickly.
"Mrs.
Moretti," he said.
"I think we can resolve this without it becoming ugly."
"It's already ugly," Amara said.
"You filed a motion this morning calling my financial disclosures illegally obtained."
"A precaution." He sat down without being invited.
"Dante is willing to be generous.
The house.
Full custody arrangement.
A settlement that would make this very comfortable for you and the baby."
"In exchange for what?"
"The documents.
The copies.
Everything your accountant built." He smiled.
"And a confidentiality agreement."
Philip leaned forward.
"Mr.
Cass—"
"Philip." Cass didn't look at him.
He kept his eyes on Amara.
"Mrs.
Moretti.
You're six months pregnant.
You're living in a temporary apartment.
Your husband is a powerful man with a great deal of patience and a great deal of resources.
This can be simple or it can be very hard." He paused.
"Dante would prefer simple."
Amara looked at him for a long moment.
"Tell Dante," she said quietly, "that he should have thought about simple before he put another woman in my chair."
Cass's smile didn't move.
But something behind it did.
"I'll pass that along," he said.
He stood, buttoned his jacket, and left.
Philip waited until the door was fully closed.
"He came here to see what you have," he said.
"I know."
"He doesn't know about the drive."
"No." Amara looked at the closed laptop on the desk.
"He knows about Grace.
He doesn't know about Selena."
Philip nodded slowly.
May you like
"We need to move fast."
"Then let's move," Amara said.
