Bitcoin Billionaire: I Regressed to Invest in the First Bitcoin!-Chapter 257: Unlicensed Wallets

Kara pushed off the wall, taking a step towards the center of the room. "So why are you here? Now?"

"Because," Greaves said, finally turning fully to face her, the movement economical and precise, "Washington wants definitive answers. Specifically, whether private mining operations like yours are circumventing regulated liquidity channels. Whether this company is masking offshore transfers through local node operations. And whether you’re utilizing shell partners to distribute mined currency through unlicensed wallets."

A profound silence descended, thick and cold as the winter grey pressing against the windows.

"That’s... quite a lot of suspicion," Rachel observed, her pen still.

"Suspicion," Greaves countered, her gaze unwavering, "is invariably the first step."

The door handle clicked, breaking the taut atmosphere.

Everyone turned their gazes.

He was here at last.

Darren Steele walked into the room without hesitation. He wore no tie, and his entrance carried no sense of rush or alarm. He moved with a calm, measured step, his eyes quickly scanning the tense tableau before locking onto Agent Greaves with an unblinking, steady gaze.

The women let out breaths of relief. Rachel watched him silently."

"Agent Greaves, I presume," Darren stated.

"You are Darren Steele," she responded. It was a declaration, not a question.

They quickly shook hands, though it didn’t seem like any respect was passing between either of them.

"I am," he confirmed, nodding towards the thick brown envelope she held. "And I can see you’ve arrived fully prepared for war."

"Not war," she corrected, her voice flat. "I’m not antagonistic, Mr. Steele. I want what everyone wants. The truth."

Darren pulled out a chair and sat down, giving himself a posture that appeared relaxed while he remained attentive. "The truth isn’t usually hard to find, Agent, when you’re not chasing phantoms."

Greaves remained standing, a deliberate choice that made her presence loom over the seated figures like an impending judgment. "My requirements are clear," she stated. "I require immediate access to your core operational logs, warehouse site documentation, rig specifications, cold storage security policies, and the complete transaction trails involving all digital commodities for the last fiscal quarter."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "That constitutes a significant volume of data for an unannounced visit."

"It falls entirely within my purview," Greaves asserted, leaving no room for argument.

Sandy stepped forward, her voice maintaining its professional calm. "You’ll understand if we take a few minutes to verify that your documentation aligns precisely with the current federal record."

Greaves frowned at her, unsatisfied. "That takes time."

"I know," Sandy nodded once. "I promise, this isn’t a stall tactic, Agent, merely standard due diligence."

"I would expect nothing less," Greaves replied after hesitating for a moment, her expression impassive.

Another ten minutes stretched out, filled with the quiet rustle of papers and the faint hum of the building’s systems. Beneath the table, Kara’s fingers flew over her phone screen, sending a coded message to Rico:

’Red Flag. Lock down internal logs. Archive but preserve. Pull mirror drive – immediate.’

Amelia, her face a mask of concentration, was already mentally constructing a parallel report structure.

If Greaves penetrated their cold storage encryption logs, the intricate lattice work would be exposed – the shell wallets, the phantom transfers, the dummy accounts meticulously crafted for obfuscation. Legally defensible, perhaps, but fragile under the intense scrutiny of a federal agent.

Darren tapped the polished table surface once, a soft, deliberate sound. "May I ask a question, Agent Greaves?"

Her gaze shifted back to him.

"Why now?" Darren asked, his tone deceptively mild. "What specifically triggered this... focal point?"

Greaves blinked once, slowly. "The Department received a flagged transfer report. Three separate exchanges registered anomalous value aggregation within a critical 72-hour window. All activity was traced back to a shell LLC that shares a registered shipping address with your Navarro warehouse facility."

Amelia froze, her knuckles reddening where her hands were clasped.

Darren, however, didn’t flinch. He tilted his head slightly. "So," he said, drawing the word out, "you’re suggesting that a facility – which, as I understand it, hasn’t even commenced full operations yet – is somehow already engaged in financial crime?"

"I’m not suggesting," Greaves countered, her voice hardening a fraction. "I’m investigating." She placed a single printed sheet onto the table. It depicted a complex flowchart of interconnected wallet addresses, highlighted exchange activity, and a distinct red line connecting one of Steele Complex’s LLCs to an address chillingly labeled "R. Talmor."

Kara’s breath hissed out softly between her teeth. ’R. Talmor’.

It was a ghost name. One of the deepest layer aliases used internally to reroute Bitcoin transactions and avoid triggering automated exchange alerts. A name woven into the Steele Complex’s operational fabric since the earliest days. Only three people knew it existed.

Her. Rico. Darren.

Greaves tapped the paper decisively. "This specific address aggregated forty-one Bitcoin within seventy-two hours. It didn’t exit through any known, licensed exchange. Instead, it re-emerged via a shell contractor registered in Estonia, and then made another jump to an aggregator wallet based in Croatia."

Rachel leaned forward, her legal training surfacing. "Correlation isn’t causation, Agent. That data flow doesn’t prove malfeasance."

"It suggests a pattern requiring thorough investigation," Greaves countered, her tone final.

Outside the tall windows, the already cloudy sky seemed to darken further, deepening the shadows within the sterile meeting room. The tension inside had become a palpable force, thick and electric.

Darren finally leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "Well then," he said, his voice calm but carrying a new weight. "Looks like we’re going to have ourselves a rather long day, Agent Greaves."

Greaves offered a single, tight nod of acknowledgment. "I’m not leaving," she stated, her voice leaving no room for doubt, "until the record speaks for itself."

And that – the finality, the declaration of unwavering intent – was precisely the line Darren Steele had been waiting for.

His faint smile solidified into something more defined, almost challenging. "Then let’s pull up some chairs and get comfortable," he said, gesturing towards the empty seat opposite him. "We might be here awhile."