Chapter 12 - The Case Against Javier Grew Bigger Than Me
By the end of the month, Javier was no longer just my former associate.
He was the center of a full financial investigation.
Once auditors started looking beyond my company, they found connections to two outside vendors, a real estate intermediary, and an independent project manager who had been falsifying progress reports in exchange for kickbacks.
The riverfront land scheme turned out to be a laundering pipeline disguised as property development.
And Javier had been using Romano Development Group as the clean face on dirty transactions.
When detectives interviewed me, one of them said, “If your son hadn’t seen those papers, this probably would’ve run another six months.”
Maybe longer.
I drove home in silence after that meeting.
Then I went into the backyard and stood beside the grill area where it all happened.
The wrecked buffet table and collapsed grill were gone by then. Everything looked beautiful again. The lawn had been repaired. Fresh flowers had been planted. Chairs arranged. Patio washed clean.
But I could still see it.
Leo on the ground.
Mia frozen nearby.
My whole world narrowing to one point.
That’s the thing about certain afternoons.
They never really leave.
May you like
Even after the grass grows back.
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