Happy Scandal Thursday. Thank you all for the reviews! I hope you like this new chapter.
Flashback
Rowan Pope was an excellent accountant, but an honest man who saw no grey in life, but just black and white, right and wrong. He started to work for Grant Investments right out of college. He had worked for the company for over twenty years and had climbed to the top of the accounting heap in the company. His only fault in life was that honesty.
When he took over the accounting department he was able to look at all accounting as a whole and not as a part. He started to see some accounting irregularities that appeared each month out of their international division. There seemed to be money coming into the company, but not as a real investment transactions, but just cash. Not a stunning amount of cash, but enough for Rowan to bring the discrepancy to Gerry Grant's attention one afternoon. Gerry said he would look into the cash and not to worry he would take care of it. That was enough for Rowan so he thought. He was sure he would get to the bottom of this mystery.
Rowan never got the answer he was looking for. He continued to see the transactions, but this time he didn't bring it up to Gerry again. He did a little digging himself as discreetly as possible and found the transactions were coming from Russia. Rowan was not naïve he finally realized that it was a money laundering operation for the Russian Mob or some illegal entity. Once he gathered all the information he needed he made an appointment to see the FBI.
What Rowan didn't know was that as soon as he alerted Gerry to his discovery. Gerry had his office and home bugged, and had Yuri follow him. They waited until Rowan had his first meeting with the FBI to act. Gerry thought he could kill two birds with one stone so he told Yuri it was time to bring his son to heel. They contacted Mike Kellog and told him it was a go that weekend.
Mike organized a party for the entire floor of his dorm, he drugged Fitz and got David Prince to help him carry Fitz to his car. David jumped in thinking they were on a beer run. Mike drove to the liquor store, and told David to go in and left him there. Mike delivered Fitz to Yuri. They took him to a vacant warehouse and through the use of drugs and hypnosis convinced him that he killed Rowan and Carolyn Pope in a car crash. They made sure that when he woke up in the car that he would be compelled to call Gerry before the cops.
They dealt with Rowan and his wife by getting Yuri to drive a dump truck in a head on collision with Rowan and his wife. They were on their way to FBI headquarters to be taken into the witness protection program. They hit them on a deserted road outside their home. A wrecker picked up the wreckage and they transported them to another deserted road by Fitz's school. They deposited Fitz back in the driver's seat of his smashed up car. So the story that Fitz would tell himself from then on was that he killed the Pope's.
Fitz's life stopped after that crash. Everything in his life reference back to that night when he killed the Pope's. Then to find and fall in love with their daughter, was like fate was giving him a chance to atone for their death and the bonus was her love. Now he didn't have that anymore.
That's what Fitz was thinking in the passenger seat next to Miggie.
"Fitz. Fitz."
"Yeah. Sorry to zone out man."
"Not a problem. What were you thinking about?"
"How I not only screwed up my life up with Olivia, but I took the most precious thing from her and I never told her. She will never forgive me. I guess that's what I deserve for killing her parents."
"I want you to listen to me and keep an open mind. When you told me about the accident, I thought something sounded wrong or off. So I called Trevor and we remember that night a little different. Fitz before you got in the car that night you were passed out. Mike Kellog and David Prince dragged you to your car and threw you in the back seat. Here's a little information also about your friend Mike Kellog. Until he attended our boarding school he never existed. Harrison investigated him. He's a ghost. Abby is in Detroit Michigan trying to track him down based on the info you gave us."
"Miggie are you telling me that I might not have killed Olivia's parents?"
"Yeah, I think it's a distinct possibility that you didn't."
"Pull the car over Mig!"
Fitz jumped out and started to throw up. Migel jumped out and handed him a wet wipe to clean him up. He let him sit on the side of the road a little longer then told him to get back in the car. Fitz slowly got back in the car. He made up his mind to tell Miggie everything.
"Mig, if you and Harrison are fighting to prove me innocent then I owe you all the truth about Gerry and me."
Migel tightened his grip on the steering wheel preparing for what Fitz was about to say. Deep down he knew that Fitz had not been totally honest with him, but he nodded his head for Fitz to go ahead.
"Miggie, the beating I was taking when I went home was my father trying to induct me into the Russian mob. I would have been third generation. I wouldn't agree so they would hang me up in the garage and beat me. When your Dad beat up Gerry he stopped trying to make me join. The night before we graduated from Stanford my Dad showed me pictures of me behind the wheel of the accident, and told me I had to come and work with him, if I didn't he would send these to the police and FBI. The Pope's accident is a cold case."
Migel had to pull over. He turned and looked at Fitz with a look of sadness and hurt for being mad at him for working for Gerry.
"That's not the end of it Miggie. The reason I agreed to marry Mellie Rosemont is my father told me if I didn't he would kill Olivia and take my boys away to Russia and I would never see them again. He showed me surveillance footage of my boys at school and Olivia at home. He said he could have killed her at anytime. He would let me live, just to make sure I lived with the pain of knowing that I had betrayed him, because loyalty above all else is the code of his family. You should know also that my father is not the head of his branch of the mob, but a high level soldier. He works for someone called the Banker. Who happens to be Hardeson Rosemont. Mellie's father."
Miggie just stared in disbelieve at what Fitz just told him. He swallowed hard.
"Look Fitz you just broke my case I've been working on for a year wide open. Me and the government has chased the Banker for over ten years, but right when we got close someone else was always offered up instead of him. Do you know how much danger we and your family are in?"
"Why do you think I'm telling you now. I have lived with the fear of loosing everything for over seven years. If only Olivia had married me we could have prevented this current situation we're in now. We still would have been under the threat of my father, but now I wouldn't be betrothed to Mellie. No one says no the Banker and his daughter!"
"Fitz tell me now. Are you involved with the money laundering your company has done? Because if you are, I can shield you from what's coming, but you have to tell me now!"
Fitz turned his head to look out the front of the car.
"I had no idea what my family was up to until I heard my father talking to someone named Yuri one night at the office. I went up to give my father a file and his door was open a bit. They spoke in Russian, but my grandparents taught my brother and me to speak Russian. I heard the last name Pope and I got as close to the open door as possible to listen. They were reminiscing about how they got rid of Rowan Pope and his inquires into the dirty money coming from mother Russia. I knew my father was dirty up to his eyeballs, so money laundering is not surprising. I have never been involved in any of Big Gerry's schemes. So no Miggie. Now that we're putting the pieces together, I couldn't have killed them. If I didn't kill them...then that bastard Gerry is responsible!"
Fitz was beyond mad, he was enraged. He knew in his heart that no matter what happens from here on out, he was going to kill Big Gerry. He didn't know how, but he was going to exact the correct payment for all the fear he'd lived with. He didn't say it out loud to Miggie but in his heart he made an oath on his son's heads that he would kill his father.
