Compassion doesn’t erase what you did.”

Those quiet words carried more weight than any screaming match could have.

Chapter 5 — The Sealed Envelope

Just when we thought we’d found all of it, another layer peeled back weeks later.

A woman named Brenda came to Julian’s office carrying a USB drive, bank ledgers, and deeds to a parcel of land Upstate.

She was Mark’s secret girlfriend.

He’d laundered nearly a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the scammed families’ money into accounts under her name and converted the rest into cryptocurrency.

She’d come forward because Mark had begun threatening her from county jail, demanding she liquidate everything to pay for his defense team.