Chapter 6 - THE MAN BEHIND THE FALSE NAME
Northpoint Annex turned out to be three places, and none wanted to acknowledge the others.
One was a closed rehabilitation center outside Milwaukee. Another was a freight-owned dormitory near the Michigan state line. The third was a medical supply contractor with offices in Grand Rapids and a mailing address that led to an empty storefront.
Dana explained this to Sadi in a conference room where every cup of coffee had gone cold.
"We have warrants for the financial records," she said. "Not unrestricted access to every building. We need probable cause tied to specific people and addresses."
"Then you have Amir's medical chart, his signature mark, and a transport invoice."
"We have evidence pointing toward him. We're trying to find the individual behind the name without compromising the investigation."
"Every hour matters if they're moving him."
"I know."
Sadi wanted to shout. Instead, she pressed her feet flat against the floor and counted her breathing the way her father had taught her. Panic could drive a person into the wrong doorway. She had nearly paid for that lesson in the cage.
Mara's office had arranged temporary lodging for several witnesses through a neutral nonprofit. Sadi had refused anything paid by Dominic, but she accepted a room arranged by the clinic after Dana confirmed it would not interfere with testimony. She missed her apartment's crooked windows and the sound of the upstairs neighbor practicing trumpet. She missed being able to go to the grocery store without looking twice at every parked vehicle.
Noah called that afternoon.
"My sister's safe," he said. "I finally told her what's been happening. She yelled at me for twenty minutes."
"That sounds promising."
"She said she wanted a brother, not a bodyguard who never called."
Sadi smiled despite everything. "She's right."
"I know."
"What are you going to do?"
"I might go to her when the doctors clear me. She's in college now. Wants to be a teacher."
"Then you have something worth getting better for."
After the call, Sadi went to the hospital to visit Dario. His mother, Linh Tran, was sitting beside the bed with a stack of insurance forms. She looked up when Sadi entered.
"You're the girl from the video," Linh said.
"I am. I'm sorry about what happened to him."
Linh considered her for a moment, then moved a chair closer.
"Sit. Tell me how we make sure there isn't another boy in that cage."
They talked for an hour. Linh worked in a bakery and had raised Dario with help from her sister. He had taken on debt after his father lost a job, then fallen for a promise of prize money. He had been told the contracts were confidential, that questioning them was a sign of disloyalty.
"I kept telling him not to fight," Linh said. "He told me he was doing it for me."
"Sometimes love gives the wrong people a way to pressure us," Sadi answered.
Linh touched her son's hair as he slept. "Then we need people who understand the difference."
The meeting gave Sadi an idea. Not a heroic idea. A practical one. Fighters needed access to independent doctors, legal advice, and temporary income before they became trapped. She asked the workers' clinic whether it could help design a program. They said yes, provided the people affected helped lead it.
Dominic called later that evening. He had learned that Salvatore Russo still possessed a set of authorized signatory credentials for the family trust. The credentials were old but valid, and Voss had used them to open two contractor accounts without Dominic's direct approval.
"Have you told Dana?" Sadi asked.
"Mara sent the records to her office this afternoon."
"Good."
"I'm meeting my uncle tomorrow."
Her stomach tightened. "That sounds like an opportunity for him to prepare a lie."
"The meeting is at Mara's office, with her present. I won't confront him privately."
"What made you change your mind?"
"I remembered you saying that men in my position like to handle things themselves. I think that's how people like Voss survived. Every person was alone with his own version of the truth."
She was silent for a moment. "That's not a bad observation."
"I had to make one eventually."
She almost laughed. She did not want laughter to become agreement, but for an instant she could see the man behind the title.
The next morning, Salvatore arrived in a camel-colored coat and an expression of indulgent annoyance. He was seventy-two, silver-haired, with the same slate eyes as his nephew. He greeted Mara, ignored the investigators she had invited to observe, and set his hat on the table as though he owned it.
Sadi had been asked to attend as a potential witness only if she wanted to. She chose to sit in the back beside her attorney, a brisk legal aid lawyer named Tessa Morales.
"Dominic," Salvatore said, "you've let a bar girl turn a business problem into a public circus."
"Her name is Sadi Rahman," Dominic replied.
Salvatore waved a hand. "And her name now controls the company?"
"Evidence controls what happens next."
"Your father would be ashamed."
Dominic looked almost relieved to hear the familiar weapon. "My father is dead."
Mara laid out the account mandates. "Mr. Russo, these documents carry your signature. Can you explain the payments?"
"Security retainers. Industrial labor is expensive."
"Several vendors have no employees," Mara said.
"Then your auditors should do their jobs."
"They are."
Salvatore glanced toward Sadi. Recognition crossed his face, followed by something like disgust.
"I know your family," he said. "Your father was troublesome too."
Sadi felt Tessa's hand rest lightly against the edge of her notebook. A reminder that she was allowed to speak but not required to respond to every provocation.
"What did my father trouble you about?" Sadi asked.
Salvatore smiled. "He believed paperwork could correct the world. He got sick because he couldn't stop worrying."
"He died six years ago. Somebody used his identity two years afterward."
"The world is full of clerical errors."
"Not ones that sign their own transport orders."
The smile disappeared.
Dana, who had joined near the end of the meeting, asked Salvatore about the facility known as Northpoint Annex. He claimed he had never heard of it. Five minutes later, Mara produced an invoice paid from Bell Tower Logistics bearing his initials and the words Northpoint medical transfers.
He changed his answer. Perhaps he had seen the name, he said. He did not handle daily operations.
"Yet you approved the payment," Mara replied.
"I approve hundreds."
"Then you'll have no objection to providing the corresponding records."
Salvatore stood. "My lawyer can discuss that."
When he left, the room seemed to gain oxygen.
Dominic remained seated. He looked at his hands.
"He recognized your father," he told Sadi.
"Yes."
"He didn't act surprised to hear the name."
"No."
"I should have brought him into this years ago."
Sadi met his eyes. "You can still give investigators everything they need."
"I will."
Two hours later, Mara received a message from the trust's banking administrator. Salvatore had tried to transfer a large sum out of one of the disputed accounts before reaching home. The transaction had been stopped because the account was under preservation order. Dana issued a request to restrict access to further records while investigators established who had initiated the attempt.
Sadi spent the afternoon with Jo in the clinic basement, drawing a plan for the former fighters' program. They listed doctors willing to volunteer, counselors experienced with coercion, and places where people could find work without the false glamour of prize money. Dario wanted to help once he recovered. Noah offered to speak about the way his own contract had been manipulated.
"You know what it's missing?" Jo asked.
"A building. Money. Somebody who knows how to organize volunteers."
"A name."
Sadi looked at the page. Amir used to say that you couldn't build a decent gym without a decent name. He had wanted to call theirs No Free Rounds, after his old joke about doing hard work for promises.
She wrote it at the top.
Jo nodded. "There. Now it exists."
That night, Lena called from a secure number.
"An invoice came through my old clinic account," she said. "I think someone left it where I'd see it."
"What kind?"
"A request for emergency diabetic supplies. The patient name is Daniel Reed. The date is yesterday. The delivery contact is a nurse named Celia Warren."
"Where?"
"A treatment center near the state line. I passed the information to Dana. She says she may have a way to speak to the nurse without alerting the people running the contractor."
Sadi pressed a hand to her mouth. "Can you verify the patient?"
"Not yet. But the request includes a note: Patient asks about girl who never lost the peach."
For a moment Sadi could hear Amir laughing at their kitchen table, telling her he would pay back the fruit with interest. Her knees loosened. She slid to the floor against the wall.
"That's him," she whispered.
Lena did not argue. She also did not promise what they could not know.
"We're closer," she said.
After the call, Sadi sat on the floor for a long time. She had spent four years thinking of herself as someone who had failed to find her brother. Now she understood that endurance was not failure, and that hoping after so many disappointments required its own kind of courage.
A message arrived from Dominic: I spoke to Mara. I understand you may have good news. I won't ask for details. I hope you get to tell him about the fight yourself.
Sadi read it twice, then typed back: He'll probably say my footwork was terrible.
Dominic replied: He'll be right about one turn. I watched the video.
She laughed aloud in the empty room. It startled her. Joy was still possible, even here, even before an answer was certain.
Then another message appeared, this one from an unknown number.
STOP ASKING ABOUT NORTHPOINT. YOUR BROTHER ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DISAPPEAR.
May you like
Sadi took a screenshot and sent it to Dana. She turned on the lights in the room and made herself breathe slowly. Threats had worked for years because they arrived in private. This one would become part of the record.
Across the city, a security camera captured Adrian Voss entering a private garage with a suitcase and two men in uniforms bearing the logo of a medical transport contractor. He did not know investigators were watching the entrance, or that the frightened people he had treated as inventory had begun to learn one another's names.
