Page 120 of Stolen Kisses

"We could find out a lot from the transaction details," Knox said.

“I’m on it,” I assured them.

"I'm making a Dropbox folder where only we have access, okay? We can put everything there, and it's not traceable on the company's servers. Just until we figure out what's wrong."

"All right. Let’s get to work." My heart was in my throat. Clearly, if Duncan had asked his brothers here, it meant he was convinced there was something suspicious going on.

I reviewed all the transactions, but there was no person behind it. It was a company.

“Asset Buying Limited,” I murmured. “That doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I’m looking into it,” Knox said.

For the next hour, I kept analyzing the transactions, although I wasn’t sure we could get more info out of it.

“We’re onto something,” Knox suddenly announced.

“Found a contact information for Asset Buying Limited?” I asked.

“No. It’s clearly a shell company,” Finn added confidently.

“That’s unusual. Why would anyone set up a shell company to make investment transactions through an online portal? The whole point of it is that any regular Joe can use it.”

With shell companies, you usually didn’t have any info about the owners. They were typically a corporation without active business operations or significant assets. Sometimes they were used to disguise business ownership.

"If you’re about to do illegal stuff, you don’t want it traced back to you. But I think we have a lead," Finn said.

"Asset Buying Limited does have a web page. We looked at the code of the website, and they’ve left the name of a law company in the footer.” Knox turned the screen.

It was all code. I didn't understand much of it, but I recognized the name he highlighted. "Farley & Gottlieb. That’s a famous law company, right?"

Duncan set his jaw. Finn and Knox exchanged a glance.

"What?" I asked. "You know it?"

"We haven't worked with them, but Cyrus is very close to them and plays golf three times a week with the execs."

My stomach dropped. "Cyrus Smith?"

“Yes.” Duncan sat back in his chair, then abruptly stood up as if he had too much energy to sit.

"Would he do that? He works here," Knox said.

"Yeah, but he doesn't seem happy about it," Finn replied.

"So it's common knowledge?" I asked, stunned.

Knox shrugged. "Some people are just chronic complainers. If we fired everyone who does that, we'd end up with no employees."

"We need more intel," Duncan replied. "I can’t help but remember that heofferedto oversee the SEC investigation. That’s concerning. Can you trace the IP address or something?"

"Nah, he wouldn't be stupid enough to do transactions from the office itself. I'm not even sure he knows how to use our platform. The guy's a dinosaur," Finn countered.

Knox gritted his teeth. "We have to tell our brothers. I don't think this is a coincidence."

"No, it's not." Duncan finally turned around. "But we can’t prove it was him. I'll call everyone here, and then we'll make a plan. My idea is to go to the SEC and tell them everything we found out. They're resourceful."

"Yeah, but so are we," Finn said.

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