then sell it under their ‘quality’ brand. The training, sales, and shipment of goods all occur in-house. The Popovs just handle the currency side of things.
That’s what happened with Megan’s mother. She was groomed in a small town on the outskirts of Hopeton, sold at auction before being delivered to Carlyle Shroud, a once twenty-nine-year-old factory foreman.
He hasn’t worked in almost thirty years after a stack of pallets fell on him, shattering multiple vertebrae in his back. Although he can still walk, the pain associated with his sloth-like steps deem him unemployable. Even with a perfectly groomed wife, I doubt he’s enjoying life right now. His bank records the past decade show a majority of his support payments are spent on alcohol.
Although I feel sorry for Carlyle, his miserable existence is the thread Tobias was seeking for decades before his death. His lonesome fifty-eight-thousand-dollar payment twenty-nine years ago helped me link an incalculable number of wire transfers between the Petrettis, Castros, and Popovs the past three decades.
Three wire transfer receipts took me almost a week to work out. The one cited on the slip of paper found in the Greggs’ file is included in that group. “All the unmatched wire transfers were for identical amounts. They were deposited in the Popovs’ account within days of each other and dispersed at the same time, but no matter how deeply I scoured the records, I couldn’t link the payments to the sales of property, guns, drugs, or people, leading me to believe they were for services.”
“Services?” Phillipa jumps in, her brow cocking. “What possible services could the Popovs offer that they weren’t already giving?”
I slap the wad of invoices in my hand against Henry Gottle, Sr.’s picture at the top of my criminal wish list. “The Petrettis, Popovs, and Castros were powerful, wealthy, and feared in their own right, but one man still reigned supreme. Henry Gottle.”
The pieces click into place for Phillipa when I move to the far wall in my bedroom. “Henry had the biggest chunk of the pie, making him the ideal target if those beneath him decided to band together.”
“Exactly.” I point to a timeline of events that occurred the same weekend as the Greggs’ home invasion, which happens to be exactly one month after the payments were distributed. “Going off the dates of the Greggs’ home invasion, I discovered that several key members of the Gottle crew were hit consecutively one weekend. From the reports I found buried beneath a heap of bureaucratic tape, I unearthed that those targets were high-up associates of the Gottle cartel or direct relatives of Henry’s. Details are sketchy, but it appears as if he lost five associates, two sisters, and a brother in one night.” I twist to face Phillipa. “They also killed his mother during a failed attempt to force him to step down from his command. He lost almost his entire family within days of each other. There was only one brother unaccounted for. Rumors are that he was being sheltered by the CIA officer who had recruited him in his final year of college.”
“Was?” Phillipa asks, her tone high.
“Was.” I nudge my head to Mr. Gregg’s profile picture tacked beside Henry’s. When you see them side by side, some similarities are noticeable—most notably their strong facial structure. “Melody isn’t Henry’s daughter. She’s his niece.” I hand Phillipa a heavily redacted CIA file. “Two months before the birth of Henry’s son, the Gottle compound was attacked in a similar fashion as the Greggs’ home invasion years later. Henry’s father was killed along with many members of their association. The men responsible believed they’d scare Henry into folding his operation. He was only seventeen and about to become a father, so the last thing he’d want is to enter a gangland war.” I point to a picture of a young Katarina Rouse glancing down at her rounded stomach a baby-faced Henry is caressing. “Their plan backfired. Henry wanted revenge, he was just smart enough to know he couldn’t place his family in the firing line to get it.”
“So he gave them up instead,” Phillipa fills in as an understanding glimmer ignites in her eyes.
I nod. “Except it wasn’t just Katarina and his unborn son he removed from his memory. He wiped the entire slate clean. He moved Liam and his mother out of the family’s brownstone in Manhattan, scaled down his crew to three men he trusted with the life of his only love and unborn son, then rebuilt his