The Ideal Deal

55

After tucking his children into bed, Jeff returned with two notepads and two pens in his hand. He handed Dominic a pen and notepad and handed me the other pen and notepad. He then joined us at the table Dominic and I was sitting around and opened my father's laptop.

"So I was able to hack Alex Trevino's email and noticed that he and a Daniel Porter seem to have a lot of communication. Do any of you know him?" Jeff questioned.

Dominic I nodded before Dominic informed, "Daniel Porter is the head of a secret circle called...the Circle."

Jeff frowned and began typing something into his laptop. He then informed, "Most of their conversations mentioned the word Circle. I thought it was weird, but I didn't really know what it was referencing. Here, look at this one."

He turned my father's laptop around to face Dominic and me, as he was seated across from us. Jeff had pulled up an email between Alex and Daniel that was sent from Daniel to Alex's email account. The mail read: Hey, Al. Admission has been a success. The moon is almost in our possession. Any update?

Alex's reply read: Hey, Dan. The orbit of the moon must stop. The Circle is incomplete without stars.

"Weird shit, right?" Jeff questioned. "It's obvious that they're using code names or symbolic names to reference somethings, but the question is: what the hell are they referencing? That's why I got you the notepads and pens. We need to start jotting some stuff down."

Dominic studied the email before pointing out, "Look at the date, babe. That's when we were admitted into the Circle. The admission that Daniel is talking about may be us."

Jeff frowned, "You're both in the Circle?"

I gave a quick nod before questioning, "Why would Daniel give Alex updates on the Circle if Alex isn't in the Circle. I'm pretty sure Zara said Alex had been trying to get in the Circle for years but never got admitted because his money or net worth was too low."

Jeff chuckled, "If his net worth is too low, how the hell did you two get in? Both of you individually have a current net worth of maybe $300 million, so combined, that's $600 million. Alex Trevino's current net worth is about $500 million, and his wife's net worth is about $200 million. If money or net worth is a criteria to get into the Circle, then Alex and his wife- or simply Alex, since he has more than his wife- should have gotten in too."

Dominic shook his head, "So Zara lied to us."

Jeff nodded, "Pretty much. Type in his name and check him out for yourself. His main company is Trevbots Inc. but he's part owner of a lot of great companies, and from going through his email I was able to find out that he has gained and is still gaining a lot of money from stocks and bonds. I didn't include that amount in his net worth, by the way."

"Damn!" I replied with raised eyebrows. "Alex is most likely individually richer than every individual in the Circle."

Dominic nodded a few times before shrugging, "Which would possibly make him the actual leader of the Circle, as opposed to Daniel being the leader."

In agreement, Jeff nodded and pointed out, "That would explain why Daniel was giving him updates."

I took a few notes of the discussion we were having and thought in silence to make sure I understood everything so far. What I understood was that Zara lied to us, Daniel probably wasn't the leader of the Circle after all, Alex had a tremendous amount of wealth and was probably the real leader of the Circle, and that Alex and Lumiere were practically family.

"What we don't know is why Lumiere would give us a clue about the death of our families and why Zara would turn over information about the murder but then lie to us when we got close," I brought up.

Dominic then brought up, "She even turned over a picture of the tattoo, but she must've known that the tattoo was Circle-affiliated."

We all wrote down some notes from our discussion, and Jeff suggested, "Maybe they've been fucking with you the whole time."