Chapter 327 - 210: Julian Wants to Defect
Evening fell, the sun trading places with the moon.
In a visiting room at the Southern District of New York Federal Detention Center, the ghastly white fluorescent lights hummed faintly.
Julian, dressed in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit, stared intently through the blast-proof glass at the man sitting across from him.
Just a few hours ago, he was still sipping coffee in a top-floor office in Midtown Manhattan, planning the underwriting for a 500 million USD asset package and dreaming of his future as the Head of North American Assets.
Now, the leg he had scalded with coffee was still throbbing with a dull ache.
'Fuck, I'm a partner making millions of USD a year, and they can't even give me a six-dollar tube of burn cream?'
Adam, impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, with even the Windsor knot tied flawlessly, sat across from him on the other side of the glass.
To Julian, however, this refinement was glaring, as if Adam were flaunting it in his face.
"What the hell are you playing at, Julian?" Adam picked up the phone, frowning. "This was supposed to be a simple matter. Not only did you drag it out for so long, but you also completely screwed it up."
"I was framed," Julian growled in a low voice. "Someone sent a report directly to Jamie Damon. Someone planned this against me."
"It's too late for excuses now. It was your stupidity and arrogance that left them an opening," Adam cut him off coldly. "Now, not only have you ruined your own career, you've nearly brought the heat down on my client. I came here before your lawyer to formally notify you on my client's behalf: this matter ends here. You will bear the consequences of your own mistakes."
Julian didn't speak, just stared at Adam.
He frantically replayed Adam's request in his mind, then pieced together all the fragments of information from the past few days—from Elizabeth Mellon's foundation to the fifty million USD in bridge funds he had been tasked with precisely intercepting, all the way to the mysterious offshore buyer Adam refused to name.
"Charles Mellon!" Julian said suddenly. "Your boss is Charles Mellon, isn't he? Only someone from the Mellon Family would need to use such a dirty trick at this specific time to choke off Elizabeth Mellon's cash flow. He's fighting for some of the family's assets, right?"
Adam's eyes narrowed slightly. He neither confirmed nor denied it.
"What's done is done, Julian," he said dryly. "My client is extremely displeased. This isn't over. It's not just you; I'm going to be implicated as well."
With that, Adam hung up the phone, stood up, and left the visiting room without a backward glance.
"Hey, wait! Come back!" Julian pounded on the blast-proof glass. "What do you mean, this isn't over?"
His only answer was the sight of Adam's back and the sound of the door closing, followed by a wave of immense unease.
"I want to see my lawyer, now!" Julian gritted his teeth and shouted at the guard standing outside the door.
Forty minutes later, his lawyer was sitting where Adam had been.
"What's the bail? Get me out of here, now!" Julian urgently grabbed the phone. "I need to get out immediately. I need to talk to Damon. I can turn state's witness. We can negotiate anything."
But to his surprise, the lawyer sighed.
"There's no bail, Julian." The lawyer mercilessly shattered his fantasy, pulling a thick file from his briefcase and pressing it against the glass. "The judge denied your bail request. The prosecution believes you're an extremely high flight risk and are suspected of using your position to illegally interfere with the cross-border clearing network."
The lawyer's tone was all business. "Mr. Jamie Damon personally ordered a full investigation. Within the last hour, the compliance department found another three instances of irregular clearing involving high-risk accounts in your transaction history, spanning Asia, Europe, and Africa, as well as two internal account shortfalls with unaccounted-for funds. Julian, who exactly did you piss off?"
"No, isn't it after business hours? How are they suddenly so efficient?" Julian was stunned. He slammed the table, furious. "I didn't fucking do that! They're pinning someone else's shit on my head! I know who's trying to frame me! You need to help me now. I need to get out!"
'Fuck you, Charles Mellon.'
Julian never imagined Charles Mellon's retaliation would be so swift. Just because he'd failed to get the job done, Charles Mellon wanted him to take the fall for something huge and rot in prison.
'Just what are they planning?'
"But you can't get out now. Your digital key is the only one that's been frozen and is under federal review. The entire chain of evidence points to you." The lawyer calmly put away the file and shrugged. "This is very messy, Julian. Unless you tell me who you've pissed off, I can't see how I can help you."
Julian paused. "I can't say."
'If I told him, this son-of-a-bitch lawyer would run for the hills.'
"Then my hands are tied," the lawyer said, standing up and straightening his suit. "The prosecution's initial plea deal is fifteen years. If you refuse to plead guilty, with consecutive sentencing for multiple charges, you could face a maximum of forty-five years in federal prison. Think it over, Mr. Julian."
The visiting room fell silent once more. Julian slumped limply into the metal chair.
He thought and thought, then suddenly looked up at the officer outside the door. "Officer, I need to make a phone call. And I need to see someone. I want to see Li Wei."
「2:45 AM.」
In the master bedroom of a luxury apartment in Battery City Park, Li Wei's personal phone on the nightstand started vibrating.
He opened his eyes almost the instant it began, glanced at Anya sleeping soundly beside him, and quietly slipped out from under the covers. He walked to the panoramic floor-to-ceiling window and answered the call.
The caller ID showed a landline number starting with 212.
"This is the Southern District of New York Federal Detention Center," a woman's voice said on the other end. "An inmate has requested an emergency call with you. Do you wish to accept?"
'Did Chen Haisheng get arrested?'
'Or did someone else I know get into trouble?'
But then he reconsidered. Chen Haisheng was discreet. And even if he did get into trouble, it would usually be handled by the New York City Police Department, the NYPD, not sent directly to the federal detention center in the South District.
'As the old saying goes, even when you beat a dog, you consider its master.'
Given that Chen Haisheng was Li Wei's employee, even if something did happen, the New York City Police Department should have called him first before taking any action.
"Put him through."
"Li Wei," a tired, urgent voice came through the line a second later. "Do you remember me? It's Julian."
Li Wei was silent.
"I only have three minutes," Julian said, his voice low. "I need to see you. I know you were the one helping behind the scenes. Only you can decide how this ends. Seven AM, the visiting room. You have to be there."
...
At 7:00 AM, after a tedious security check and identity verification process, Li Wei was led by a guard into a narrow meeting room.
A thick sheet of bulletproof glass ran down the middle, with a black intercom on each side.
When Julian was brought in, Li Wei barely recognized the man who had once been a high-and-mighty senior partner at JPMorgan Chase headquarters.
After less than twenty-four hours in custody, his once impeccably styled hair was a mess, his custom-tailored suit had been replaced with a coarse orange jumpsuit, his eyes were sunken, and his jaw was covered in bluish stubble.
Julian sat down, stared intently at Li Wei opposite him, and picked up the receiver.
Li Wei, ignoring Julian's fierce gaze, picked up his phone and said nonchalantly, "You were looking for me."
"Listen, Li Wei, I know it was you," Julian averted his gaze and said, getting straight to the point. "That little girl, Elizabeth, doesn't have the ability or the resources to weave such a large net in such a short amount of time."
Li Wei said noncommittally, "I'm listening."
The more Julian spoke, the more certain he became of his theory. He continued, "She might be able to scrape together a few marginal resources from the Mellon Family, but there's no way she could get Colin from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Bureau to temporarily lift the freeze order, and she certainly couldn't have gotten Mark at Merrill Lynch Securities to turn on me."
He took a deep breath, staring into Li Wei's eyes. "Colin and Mark both betrayed me, and the only person who could have intervened at both those points and interacted with them is you. Besides, I saw you with Elizabeth at the restaurant before (Chapter 93), and you even have a foundation registered under her name."
"What are you trying to say?" Li Wei cut him off. "Get to the point."
Julian stared intently at Li Wei. "Let's forget about the past. On Wall Street, there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests."
"Charles Mellon thinks he's covered his tracks, but he's never changed his agent, Adam. I've done a lot of things for him." His nose was practically pressed against the glass. "That so-called Manhattan Art Center of his—its underlying structure has at least three funds suspected of illegal offshore tax evasion, and it's even tied to multiple shell transactions for art money laundering."
He gripped the receiver tightly. "You're helping Elizabeth, and I don't care what your motives are—whether you want to suppress the Mellon Family or you're just after her for her looks. As long as you're willing to use the connections you now have to help me reach a plea deal with the prosecution for a reduced sentence—
I'm not even asking you to get me bail. Just get my sentence reduced to the minimum and protect a portion of my offshore trust funds,
and I'll spill all this dirt on Charles Mellon. With this evidence, his foundation will definitely face a federal audit. I don't know the specifics of their family infighting, but I can guess that this will cause major trouble for Charles Mellon's foundation."
"I'm not your enemy, Li Wei," he said, a smile appearing on his face after he finished. "Charles Mellon is your enemy. I'm just a scapegoat who got caught in the crossfire."
After speaking, his body tensed up, like a death row inmate about to be sent to the execution ground, awaiting the King's judgment.
-----------------