Bitcoin Billionaire: I Regressed to Invest in the First Bitcoin!-Chapter 261: Greaves’s Mission

"You gotta let me do it my own way this time, boss."

A low masculine chuckle echoed in the room. "Is that what you want?"

"Things like this are what I trained my whole life for. I will not let any illegal digital activity go unchecked. You know... you know what this means to me."

The man hesitated for a moment. "Very well. These are my orders so you must follow them accordingly, but I will grant you the freedom to experiment. You have skills, Lilian. I expect you to use them."

"I will not let you down, sir."

In a room, there were bright overhead fluorescents humming, and below it was a long mahogany table across tiled platinum floors.

On the walls of this room were files stacked like quiet accusations. More files created towers on tables in front of each seat, and there were only two people occupying the room:

Deputy Director Warren Caldridge, and Agent Lilian Greaves.

The tall, coded man wearing black shades stood by the window, arms crossed behind his back, staring out at the overcast skyline of Washington AD — the Capitol dome a faint silhouette in the gray haze.

"On the list is a company that merely started at the last quarter of last year," he continued without turning around. "Steele Investments."

Greaves had heard of that company. It was run by a know-it-all 21-year-old. In fact, she’d predicted it would collapse that same month when it launched.

But somehow, surprisingly, it was still afloat.

The beautiful but dead angel stood at attention, arms straight, hands clasped behind her back like steel cables. Her tailored black suit bore no wrinkles, and her eyes — cold, calculating, unwavering — were locked onto the file before her.

"Steele Investments," Caldridge continued, "is a rising node in a chaotic grid. A company that’s grown too fast off the back of an unregulated asset class that our administration is one headline away from calling a national threat."

He finally turned.

Caldridge’s eyes were sunken with the weight of a dozen sleepless nights, but Lilian couldn’t see it of course, as he always hid them behind those impassive shades. He had a calm voice, nevertheless, any time he spoke, every word landed like a hammer.

"It’s owned by a young billionaire, Darren Steele. From what I know, he’s not just another Silicon Valley opportunist. He might be young but he’s the real deal. We’ve been watching him, and at a very young age — both him and his company, he’s managed to gain alliances that have given him unchecked power in the city of Los Alverez."

Lilian narrowed her eyes.

"Don’t underestimate him because of his youth. He’s surgical, and makes very few mistakes from what we’ve seen. I’ve had Treasury analysts tracking cold wallets with digital dust trails that all lead back to shell companies that, by sheer coincidence, have ties to the warehouse Steele owns in Navarro. Even more interesting, his Bitcoin portfolio is now speculative. Many suspect that the amount in his private wallet and company wallet is not his total."

Greaves’s jaw tensed. She flipped open the file and scanned the transactions, timestamps, and identity-laundered LLCs. She already saw the patterns forming.

"Speculative laundering," she said.

Caldridge nodded. "Or worse. I want you to go in unannounced. We’ll make sure to send in the notice later to avoid them preparing. Some laws in Calivernia gives you full inspection rights as our agent. But when you get there, Lilian, I don’t want hand shaking. I want you to pull threads until the seams give way."

She closed the folder. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel-com

"I’ll break them open," she said, voice crisp.

"I don’t want broken," Caldridge said, stepping forward now. "I want exposed. We make an example of Steele, the rest of the market gets the message. They either comply, or they burn."

Greaves nodded. "You said I can do this my way."

Caldridge was silent. "Of course. As long as my orders are followed."

She nodded, taking a look at Darren Steele’s image on the file. "What do you make of him anyway?"

Caldridge sunk his hands into his pockets and turned away. "You won’t like him. He’s calm. Polished. Disarming. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone and has the success to fuel that ego."

"I don’t like anyone," Lilian replied.

A brief pause. Then the faintest shadow of a smile appeared on Caldridge’s lips — gone just as fast.

"Good."

--------

The heavy server farm doors hissed open, revealing a cavernous space bathed in the eerie blue glow of rack-mounted LEDs and the low, constant roar of a thousand fans fighting the heat thrown off by Darren Steele’s mining empire.

The Operations Room.

Cold air, smelling faintly of ozone and hot silicon, washed over them. Lilian Greaves stepped inside, her posture rigid, eyes already scanning the labyrinth of humming racks like a hawk surveying prey.

"Right," Kara said, her voice tight but professional, leading the way. Sandy, Vance, and Daisy followed, while Darren lingered near the entrance, observing. "Core operational logs. You wanted power metrics for Navarro during the flagged window?"

"I did," Lilian confirmed, her gaze locked on the towering racks.

Kara gestured towards a large, wall-mounted monitor displaying complex, real-time graphs.

Rico, already stationed there, waved amicably and quickly went to work.

"This is Navarro Facility, Test Phase Delta," Kara announced, fingers flying over a keyboard connected to the display. A specific graph zoomed in: jagged lines representing power consumption. "See the spikes? Standard for stress testing ASIC clusters. We push them to 110%, hold, cool, repeat. Fluctuates wildly. Exactly as Mr. Steele stated."

Lilian leaned closer, her sharp eyes tracing the peaks and valleys. "Correlate this with your network traffic logs for Navarro during the same period. Specifically, outbound data packets."

That was a smart thing to ask. Kara tightened her lips, but she didn’t flinch at the unexpected question.

"Rico, overlay Network TX on the same timeline."

Rico tapped commands. A new line, representing data transmission, appeared beneath the power graph. It showed predictable bursts during test phases, low during cooldowns.

"See? Traffic spikes with the power draws. Standard diagnostic data pings, hash rate reports – the noise of testing. No anomalous outbound volume matching the scale of a 41 BTC transfer. That would be a sustained tsunami, not these ripples."

Lilian studied the overlay intently. The correlation was there. But her instinct prickled. "Show me the source IPs for these ’diagnostic pings’. Specifically, any routing through non-standard gateways or proxy layers."

’Jeez. She’s not letting out, is she?’ Kara exchanged a micro-glance with Rico. This was diving closer to their obfuscation layers.

"That level of granular routing data isn’t aggregated on this main ops display, Miss Greaves," Kara explained smoothly.

"It’s Agent Greaves," Lilian snapped.