Chapter 6: Compliance Risk Management
1907 Words
Chapter 6
Compliance Risk Management
Valentina
New York, United States - November 1st, 2020
They bring me into an interrogation room. The air smells weird and my hands are still cuffed behind my back.
"Can you take these off of me before I sit down?"
A woman sits down in front of me and motions for me to do the same. It's not the policewoman from earlier.
She's looking at me like she's waiting for me to say something.
My instinct tells me to play stupid, so I do.
"Why am I being questioned? Can't I just pay a fine for being outside and go?"
She stands up with a frustrated sigh.
"Because of the drugs."
My stomach turns inside-out but my face doesn't move an inch. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yeah? You have no idea how the drugs got on the ground? Should we go test you at the hospital?"
I call her bluff. "If you want to waste time and resources, sure."
She looks at me like she wants to say something else but decides against it. I feel uncomfortable sitting in an interrogation room dressed in a barely-there dress, but I'm here now and I have to get through it.
I wonder what Matteo is doing right now.
"Was it Matteo Giudice's cocaine?"
"I don't know where it came from."
"I don't know what you're talking about, or what it has to do with me."
The woman sits back down and places her gun on the table.
"What were you doing with him in that alley?"
"Talking."
"About what? Were you there so you could buy drugs from him?"
They have no idea about the party.
"We have a joint course at our university."
"So you meet up with him in random alleys after government imposed curfew so you can talk to him about your online course?"
"We-yes."
"Do you have any idea how that would sound in front of a judge?"
Is she trying to scare me?
"I know you can't charge me because of a bag on the floor."
"What if we run it for prints?"
"You won't find mine."
"Will we find Matteo Giudice's prints on there?"
"I can't say what you'll find. You'll have to do it yourselves."
"You were talking about your university course."
"Yes."
"Dressed up for an event?"
"That's how I dress."
"What if his story doesn't match yours?"
"I just hope that he got that phone call I was supposed to get twenty minutes ago."
She doesn't like the fact that I'm right so she lets me call my dad.
This is the worst
He sounds like I just woke him up. I have no idea what time it is, but last time I checked it was 2am.
"What's going on? What happened?"
"I'm at the police station, the 30th precinct, I think. It's in Upper Manhattan."
"Valentina?"
I hear rustling in the background, which means that he got out of bed.
"Did they put you in jail?"
"No."
"Alright. Stay there and don't say anything else. How long have you been there?"
"I don't know, they took my phone and put me in an interrogation room. Maybe thirty minutes?"
"Tell them they should've called your lawyer the moment you stepped foot into that room."
He hangs up, and the woman snatches the phone away from my hand.
I don't open my mouth for I don't know how long, but my dad walks into the room at some point, followed by one of the men from the poker game.
"Why is she in here without her lawyer present?" he turns to me. "You're free to go." He tells me in English.
"I'll be the judge of that." The woman says.
"Is she being charged for something?'
"Yes. She didn't respect the government imposed curfew, nor the rule-"
"Then we'll pay the fine. Valentina, come on."
The car ride is silent at first, with the two of them in the front and me in the back. My dad turns to look at me from the passenger seat.
"Aren't you going to ask me?"
He shrugs. "I just expected more from you Valentina."
"It was a friend's birthday." I try to reason with him while also hiding the fact that his disappointment hurts.
He shakes his head and turns to look at the road for a moment. "You being out when you know you shouldn't be, with a guy and a cocaine bag on the ground. You said you wanted to move to New York to be more independent and find out who you are. Is this your idea of who you are as an independent adult?"
I don't even know what to answer him, but I feel sad. He's sort of right, but everything is okay. Nothing happened.
"Will this go on my record?"
"You don't have a record. But they'll remember your name." the man answers.
It's the first time he spoke since we got in the car.
"What about Matteo?"
"Who?"
"The guy I was with. You're just left him there?"
"You're my daughter, Valentina. If it was anyone else I wouldn't have stepped foot in there."
"Is he the guy who played poker with us?" the man asks.
"Yes."
My dad looks at me. "Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why were you in that alley with him?"
"We couldn't hear each other in the club. We weren't outside to do drugs."
"Who did the bag belong to?"
"I honestly don't know."
"Are you lying to me right now?"
"No."
The bag in the staff room is blue, not transparent.
"What happens now?"
The man answers. "Nothing. It was a half a gram of cocaine on the ground in an alley, they can't prove it's yours unless they check for fingerprints."
"What if they do?"
"Then you better hope you're telling me the truth."
I am telling the truth, but I think the bag might be Matteo's and I'm worried for him.
"You paid a fine for not respecting the rules. It's like a parking ticket, it doesn't go on your record."
"No, it's not like a parking ticket, Viktor. You shouldn't have been outside at that time of night. And it also doesn't mean that you can just go around doing drugs and 'talking' in alleys."
"I understand."
Before I go to sleep that night, I wonder whether Matteo is still there.
***
Tribeca, New York, United States – November 2nd, 2020
The office building of my dad's investment company is very close to the Statue of Liberty, which means it's two stations away from my home. The only downside is that there are a lot of tourists, and it's unusual for me to see so much energy at this time in the morning.
I barely managed to get out of bed and have my coffee before I had to be out the door.
I'm not made to wake up at eight.
The building has more levels than I can count, and I realize I've never seen it up until now.
I walk up to the woman in the lobby and read the name tag.
Ines
"I'm here for my internship?"
"Name?"
"Valentina Levin."
Something in her eyes changes when she hears my name.
"Right this way."
I follow her past the people standing by the elevators to the end of the hall. It's another elevator. The buttons are missing, having been replaced with a small screen.
"This is a private elevator for the executives." She explains as she presses a card against the screen.
We take the elevator up to the twenty-second floor; the last one. The elevator opens up into a large open space with a view of the Statue of Liberty. I'm a little overwhelmed by such big windows, showing how small the city below is.
There's a man I don't recognize sitting at the biggest desk, faced away from the window.
As I get closer I realize it's Viktor, the guy that drove my dad and I from the police station. I still haven't figured out what role he plays in all of this, but he's giving me lawyer vibes.
"Valentina, hi."
"Hi."
Ines goes back down with the elevator as I walk over to sit across from him.
"I'm Viktor, the Risk Compliance Manager at Levin Industries."
Does his job include driving my dad to the police station in the middle of the night?
"You'll be working as my assistant for the first month, so you can understand the job."
"I thought I was supposed to be a financial advisor trainee."
"We thought you'd be a better fit in Risk Management."
"Okay?"
Whatever that means.
"What do you want me to do today then?"
***
New York, United States – November 16th, 2020
The first week working with (or for) Viktor went by easily. All I have to do is join him during meetings; they were nonstop, each relating to completely different types of clients.
The government had officially lifted restrictions and allowed gatherings of up to ten people, which meant that face-to-face meetings were once again possible.
We met with some executives who tried to convince us to sell two buildings two them. Then there were real-estate developers trying to poach one of the listings and negotiate the price, and the endless entrepreneurs who all had ideas but no funds to put them into practice.
"What is your job exactly?"
Viktor looks over at my desk.
My 'office' is in the far-left corner of the room. The open spaces provide no privacy, but we're rarely at our desks anyway.
I'm literally just observing and using a very small portion of my brain.
"All we do is go to meetings and talk about who wants what for how much money."
"My job is to talk to these people and figure out whether it would be a good or a bad deal. If it's good, I bring it to your father. If it's bad, I don't bother."
"What's a good deal then? When do you even take decisions? I haven't seen you do anything else."
"A good deal is one that benefits the company long term. A bad one is a deal that would hurt us in any way. That's where the risk comes in."
"I thought compliance meant keeping up-"
"You can call it whatever you want, Valentina."
"Alright then. What decisions have you made?"
"It's not that easy."
"How long does it take?"
"At least five to six meetings, surveillance-"
"Surveillance? Five to six meetings? How can you even keep track of it?"
He sighs like there's too much to explain, but I have a lot of questions.
"If you're not going to teach me something, what's the point of me even showing up?"
He seems to like my question because he smiles.
"You're going to a meeting in five minutes. I can't attend because I have another engagement. I've already informed them of it, you can go."
The statement overwhelms me.
"Me? Can I at least have some background information?"
He brings over a folder.
"Is this the first meeting?"
He nods.
"Who is it?"
"I don't know. I've just received the appointment folder. The other guys cancelled, and I need to meet with your father down at the restaurant."
He hurries over to the elevator, making me regret asking in the first place.
GDC Corp.
Real-estate developers, construction
Room 118
- Writer
