Chapter 9
Investigators mapped the acquisitions.
Lowell Flowers.
A cleaning company.
A linen service.
A small meat supplier.
Each followed the same sequence with small variations.
First, the club expanded orders.
Then payments were delayed under a performance review.
Then Harbor Bridge offered short-term financing.
If the vendor borrowed and struggled, North Harbor appeared later as a buyer or debt purchaser.
If the vendor refused financing, North Harbor sometimes approached directly.
After acquisition, Dominic renewed the club contract almost immediately.
The businesses survived.
The previous owners usually did not.
Not as owners.
Rocco initially believed Dominic received kickbacks from North Harbor.
That would have been simple.
The forensic team found none.
No unexplained cash deposits.
No luxury purchases beyond Dominic’s salary.
No payments from Harbor Bridge.
No consulting fees from North Harbor.
Dominic’s personal finances were surprisingly ordinary.
Samuel looked frustrated.
“Either he’s hiding it very well or he isn’t getting paid.”
Rocco stared at the transaction chart.
“What if money isn’t the payment?”
Samuel looked at him.
“Ownership?”
“Maybe.”
They still could not pierce North Harbor’s structure without additional records.
Formal subpoenas did.
The response arrived two weeks later.
North Harbor’s beneficial ownership was held through two entities.
One belonged to an investment firm.
The other belonged to a management company whose voting rights were controlled through a private agreement.
The name of that company was not yet in the initial production.
But one attachment referenced an abbreviation:
DCCM.
Samuel searched everything.
Nothing.
Then Rocco remembered Dominic’s full name.
Dominic Charles Castellano.
Samuel looked at him.
“That could be coincidence.”
“Yes.”
Rocco refused to call it proof.
Another document arrived the same afternoon.
Meridian Development’s original proposal contained a handwritten note scanned into an appendix.
Need control without club appearing as buyer. Legacy owners will never sell to Castellano directly.
No signature.
But the handwriting looked familiar.
Dominic wrote his sevens with a slash.
So did the note.
Still not enough.
Rocco’s attorney cautioned him.
“We’re close. Don’t confront him yet.”
Rocco agreed.
That night, Daniel called with something he had forgotten.
When Dominic first offered to invest in Carter Bakery a year earlier, he had said:
“One day you’ll either sell to me or to somebody I send.”
Daniel had assumed it was arrogance.
Now he was no longer sure.
The next morning investigators obtained the private voting agreement behind North Harbor.
Rocco read the first page.
May you like
Then the second.
By the third, the last nine months of his nephew’s management finally made sense.
