3:07 a.m.
Chicago
The conference room had no windows, only the low hum of fluorescent lights and the smell of burnt coffee that's been sitting in the carafe since nine yesterday morning. I stopped noticing the smell hours ago. I stopped noticing most things.
Spread across the table like a battlefield autopsy are the last five years of Mercy Grace Hospital System's billing records. Someone (some soulless algorithm or, worse, some human who went home to kiss their kids goodnight) has been sending invoices to the parents of children who died in their care.
Chemotherapy cycles that ended months before the invoices were even generated. Interest accruing on balances for patients who never left the morgue.
I have color-coded the worst of it in red, because red is a raging color that mirrors exactly how I feel inside.
My laptop screen is the only real light in here. Row after row of numbers, each one a tiny scream. I'm good at hearing them scream. I've been listening since I was nineteen.
I crack my neck, flex my fingers over the keyboard, ready to start the report that will gut these people in court, when my phone chimes. Once but loud enough that the sound slices straight through the caffeine haze.
I had to shove aside a landslide of papers to find the damn thing. My old black brick of a burner (the one I keep for clients who don't want their names anywhere near mine) is half-buried under a stack of highlighted invoices. The screen lights up like it's smug about waking me up.
Unknown number. Encrypted prefix.
Offer of employment: Ledger Holdings
I snort. At 3am in the morning…were theyurunning a midnight office or what? My hand moved to the small button that could turn off the phone but something on the job offer caught my eyes.
Seven figures.
8 million dollars? That was roughly three months of a forensic audit. Enough to make some certain problem disappear.
I thumb it open before copying the link into my laptop.
I opened up the attachment file that came with the offer and started going through it. Fair enough, the holding company was a debt company that accrued the total amount of debt owed by people from different organizations.
My eyes scrolled through all the detailed information but the moment I flipped over to page 8, my whole body froze.
I blinked…
And blinked again.
I removed the reading glasses from my face and though the light from the laptop burned my direct eyes, I needed to confirm what I was seeing on the page.
Issadora Navarro.
Age: 26
Occupation: Financial forensics
Debt: 26 million dollars
Status : Fully owned
It was me. No doubt was this my portfolio, holding the amount of debt that has so far been accrued to my name over the years. But that was not what tucked my reaction. No, I knew I had those debts to deal with but the next name below mine was what made me go wild.
Diana Navarro
Age: 49
Occupation: None. Bedridden with cancer
Debt: 39.5 million dollars.
Status: Fully owned
The room tilts. My mother's name sat there in black and white with a picture of her on the hospital bed attached to it. I scrolled, and there was more.
My best friend's name, Marisol, was also attached with a picture of her that was taken in her office, with also the tag 'fully owned' written under it.
I knew what fully owned meant. I have a few times over the years although never had I thought it could happen to me. Who in their right mind would want to 'buy' my debts so they could own…me.
Organizations fear my name. Multiple companies have been single handedly brought down be. Multiple companies who pulls this same tricks on helpless people but who knows i could face the same too.
My head was hot and my fingers were trembling but I wanted to get to the root of this before reacting at taking any move. I flipped to the last page but nothing could ever prepare me for the name boldly sprawled on the file.
No…they wouldn't…they should
But they did.
Ruan Navarro….died 8 years ago.
I stare at the screen so long the letters start to swim.
Ruan Navarro
Age at death: 18
Cause: Overdose (fentanyl-laced)
Date of death: 03 September 2017
Total acquired debt: $187,412 USD (funeral expenses, ambulance, ER, outstanding juvenile court fines)
Status: Fully owned – estate in perpetuity
There's a photograph. A grainy still pulled from the morgue security feed: my little brother on a steel table, sheet pulled to her chin, eyes half-open like he was still waiting for me to come get him. I didn't even know that footage existed. I sure as hell never authorized anyone to have it.
My stomach flips hard enough that I have to slap a hand over my mouth. The room tilts again, worse this time. The fluorescent lights buzz louder, like hornets trapped in the ceiling.
They bought my dead brother.
They bought the funeral I'm still paying off in installments.
They bought the ambulance that got there too late. They bought the court fines from when he was fifteen and stupid and thought boosting a car stereo would make him a man.
I scroll with a finger that doesn't feel like mine anymore. There are more names. More photos. Marisol laughing at her desk last week. My mother unconscious in ICU last month, tubes spidering out of her like roots. Me …Jesus Christ, me, walking out of a courthouse three years ago, sunglasses on, with reporters ready to shove their mic in my mouth.
Every single one stamped in the same cold font:
Status: Fully owned
Purchaser: C.V.
I did not remember standing up. I did not even remember shoving my laptop in my bag. I don't even remember the elevator ride down thirty three floors nor the way the night security calls after me when I walked past their desk without signing out.
I only remembered Chicago air slapping me in the face immediately as I stepped out of the building.
My red car was parked outside with snow covering most part of it but it didn't stop me from getting into it and starting the vehicle.
My regular home phone was placed on the carsole and I quickly grabbed it, dialing the only person I could trust to find information in the next 30 minutes.
My legs shake impatiently at the third ring
"Hey Izza, no one might have said this but it's wi—
" Marcus, I need you to find an information for me. Now".
The urgency in my voice must have sobered him up as his voice that was sleepy and playfully before suddenly turned serious" Shoot".
" I need you to find any information on the initial C.V. Someone that can pay millions of dollars without getting shook off. I need it in 30 minutes, Marc".
I am going to hunt that person down today.