My Ears Remembered

Chapter 1

Chloe froze and glanced at Ryan.

Ryan scoffed and slapped the paperwork onto the counter.

"Putting on another show, Mia? You're an outsourced customer service rep who answers phones. Since when did you become a bank risk officer?"

With a pained smile, Chloe pushed her ID toward the teller.

"Ryan, has your wife misunderstood something? This is my junior colleague's account. He runs a medical equipment business overseas."

Ryan clamped a hand around my wrist and dragged me away from the counter.

"You take complaint calls all day, Mia. What makes you think you can walk into a bank and pretend to work here?"

Chloe lowered her eyes, resignation coloring her voice.

"Ryan, forget it. Maybe she's just worried about you. We don't have to transfer the money today."

"Worried?" Ryan sneered. "She's paranoid. The last time I had dinner with a female coworker, she called me 8 times."

He turned and glared at me, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Do you even know that Chloe just came back from Cerranex? She runs a cross-border trading factory there and employs hundreds of workers. And you? When you're not getting yelled at by customers over the phone, you're checking my step count on Apple Health to keep tabs on me.

"You're petty and narrow-minded. You can't hold a candle to Chloe."

I bit down hard, my eyes burning.

I could never have mistaken the account holder's name.

At 3 p.m. last Thursday, the Center had updated its Level One watchlist. Derek Morris was seventh on it: cross-border fraud, money laundering, and more than 100 million dollars connected to the case.

If this transfer went through and followed the laundering channel overseas, there would be almost no chance of recovering it.