Chapter 4 - The Investigation
Greta Wallace had spent her life believing that money was an impenetrable shield. But as the motel room walls seemed to shrink, she realized that money was only a temporary fortification. With her bank accounts frozen and her family’s social credit obliterated, she turned to the only thing left: her arrogance. She hired a private investigator—a man with a sordid reputation for digging up bodies—using the last of her hidden emergency cash.
"Find me something," she hissed into the phone, her voice raspy from days of screaming at dead-end lawyers. "Find me the dirt on Tristan. There has to be a reason he built this empire so quickly. No one goes from the slums to a seat at the table without blood on their hands."
For weeks, the investigator combed through every city bureau, every real estate record, and every witness from Tristan’s past. He expected to find tax evasion, or perhaps a violent criminal record. Instead, he found nothing but a vacuum. Tristan had been a ghost—a boy who spent eighteen hours a day in a library or working, a man who never once cut a corner.
The report arrived on a Tuesday. The investigator looked at Greta with a mixture of pity and confusion. "There's nothing, Ms. Wallace. The man is a machine. He paid his taxes even when he was barely eating. He helped every neighbor in that building when he made his first million. He’s not a villain. He’s a saint."
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Greta threw the file against the wall. "He’s a liar!" she shrieked. But in the pit of her stomach, she knew the truth. She had been trying to destroy a man whose integrity was his greatest weapon. She decided to pivot. If she couldn't break his history, she would destroy his present. She began leaking "anonymous" tips to the tabloids, painting Tristan as an emotionally unstable tyrant who had manufactured the fountain incident to gain sympathy.
But the public didn't care about the gossip. They loved the underdog who had made good. As the articles dropped, Tristan’s popularity only climbed. He was the "Billionaire of the People." Every time Greta tried to strike, she only hammered the final nail into her own coffin.
