The Thorne Heiress Unveiling Shadow novel Chapter 82

The university auditorium was packed. Students and faculty filled every seat, a silent sea of protest against the board's decision. Evelyn and Chloe found seats near the back, the atmosphere thick with a mixture of hope and resignation.

As they waited for the hearing to begin, Evelyn's phone vibrated with an encrypted message. It was from Kaelen.

*Found a potential link. A series of anonymous payments from our target account to a defunct shipping company in Cyprus. The company was liquidated a decade ago. Seems like a dead end, but the timing is suspicious. Thoughts?*

Evelyn's mind immediately began to process the information. Cyprus was a notorious hub for money laundering. A liquidated company was the perfect ghost to funnel money through, a digital graveyard where transactions went to die. Her fingers moved, typing a quick reply.

*Not a dead end. It's a layer. Check the port authority records for that year. Find the name of the ship that made the final delivery. Cross-reference its crew manifest with any known Syndicate associates. They wouldn't use their own people, but they might use a known third-party contractor.*

She sent the message, her focus already shifting back to the room as the hearing began.

At the front of the auditorium sat the university board, a panel of stern-faced administrators. Beside them, looking smug and triumphant, was Caspian Higgins. He was a man in his fifties with a cruel smile and the predatory eyes of a shark, radiating an aura of self-satisfied power.

The head of the Classics department, a kind, white-haired man named Professor Davies, stood at the podium. His voice trembled with passion as he spoke of the importance of the humanities, of history, of the knowledge his department had preserved for over a century. He spoke of students who had become poets, historians, and thinkers, enriching the world in ways that could not be measured on a balance sheet.

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