Chapter 9 - THE THREE FORGED APPROVALS
I had always thought security badges were secure because they made a satisfying electronic beep.
That was apparently the entire basis of my faith.
Northline issued two badges to senior employees.
One primary.
One backup.
My backup spent most of its life in my desk because I once locked myself out of the building at six in the morning and Nick told me never to let it happen again.
The desk had no lock.
Anyone with office access could have opened it.
Priya asked the obvious question.
“Who knew it was there?”
“Nick.”
“Anyone else?”
“Probably Maya.”
She nodded.
“Yep.”
“Darius maybe.”
“Probably.”
“IT.”
“Definitely.”
That was not helpful.
Building-access logs showed my backup badge entering the office on three nights.
Each entry occurred between 11:40 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.
Each matched a fraudulent approval within forty minutes.
Then we got lucky.
Very lucky.
Northline’s building did not control the parking garage.
A separate management company did.
Its cameras retained footage for eighteen months because of an insurance dispute.
On the first night my badge had supposedly entered the building, a black BMW pulled into the garage at 11:32.
Nick’s BMW.
On the second night, same car.
Third night, same car.
That alone proved little.
He owned the company.
Of course he could be there.
Then the garage camera captured him exiting the elevator.
At 1:08 a.m.
Something hung around his neck.
A badge lanyard.
Priya froze the frame.
The image was blurry.
But Northline issued differently colored badge sleeves by department.
Owners had black.
Strategy had blue.
The sleeve around Nick’s neck was blue.
My department.
Investigators took over from there.
I stopped asking for updates because I began to understand that legal processes moved on their own schedule.
Meanwhile, Harbor Street had to become a real business.
Vale’s campaign launched in two pilot counties.
Local nurses appeared in our first videos.
Not actors.
Nurses.
A retired school principal recorded a radio spot.
A volunteer firefighter became one of our strongest community advocates.
Within six weeks, appointment requests exceeded Vale’s first-quarter projections by twenty-eight percent.
Daniel sent me the numbers with one sentence.
YOUR IDEA WORKS.
I showed Laura.
She smiled.
“Your idea or your stopping?”
“Apparently both.”
She kissed me.
For a few days, life became almost ordinary.
Then bankruptcy papers arrived.
Northline Creative had filed Chapter 7.
The company had less than seventy thousand dollars in liquid assets.
Claims exceeded four million.
I sat in Priya’s office reading the filing.
“What happens to everyone who’s owed wages?”
“Employees have priority claims up to certain limits.”
“Will they get paid?”
“Some. Maybe most of the wage claims eventually. Not immediately.”
“What about the clients?”
“Depends.”
“What about the company?”
“It gets liquidated.”
That should have felt satisfying.
Nick had destroyed Northline.
Now Northline was disappearing.
Instead, I felt grief.
Not for Nick.
For what the place could have been.
We had talented people.
Good clients.
Years of work.
He had hollowed it out from the inside.
A week later, the bankruptcy trustee contacted me.
Northline’s remaining assets would be sold.
Computers.
Furniture.
Design equipment.
Domain names.
Trademarks.
Certain client-contract rights where transferable.
The office lease.
I read the list twice.
Then I laughed at one line.
Twenty-nine workstations and executive desks.
Laura looked over my shoulder.
“You could buy your old desk.”
“I never liked that desk.”
“You cried cleaning it out.”
“I was crying about unemployment.”
“The desk was involved.”
The trustee scheduled an auction.
I had no intention of going.
Then three former Northline clients called Harbor Street in one week.
Not because of Eleanor.
Because their teams had worked with Maya, Darius, and me for years.
One wanted us to take over a product launch.
Another needed crisis work.
The third needed a full annual strategy.
Together, those contracts could double Harbor Street.
But we didn’t have enough equipment.
Or space.
Or working capital to hire everyone we needed.
The Northline asset sale suddenly looked less like a funeral and more like an opportunity.
I went.
Nick did too.
It was the first time I had seen him in person since the courthouse.
He looked different.
His suits were still expensive.
His watch was still the same.
But there was something diminished about him.
People no longer moved aside automatically when he entered a room.
His attorney stayed close.
We did not speak until a break.
Then Nick approached me near a row of boxed monitors.
“You’re buying scraps now?”
“I’m buying desks.”
He smiled faintly.
“Ambitious.”
“I heard chairs are included.”
His eyes hardened.
“You always needed other people’s work.”
I stared at him.
“Is that what you tell yourself?”
“What?”
“That I took something from you?”
“You took my company.”
“You took your company.”
His smile vanished.
Investigators had not charged him yet.
But several civil suits were moving.
The forged documents were under review.
His brother-in-law had started cooperating with authorities.
Everyone knew.
Nick leaned closer.
“You think you won because a rich old woman likes you.”
“No.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
I realized I was.
“Because I don’t work for you anymore.”
I walked away.
At the auction, Harbor Street bought twenty workstations, twelve laptops certified clean by the trustee, design monitors, conference furniture, and a large-format printer for less than a third of retail price.
I did not buy Northline’s name.
I didn’t want it.
I did, however, buy one ridiculous piece of furniture.
My old desk.
Laura made me.
“You need the ending,” she said.
“The ending to what?”
“The part where you left crying.”
So the desk came with us.
When the moving company delivered it, Darius put a handwritten sign on it.
PLEASE KEEP DRIVING.
I threw the sign away.
He taped up another.
I threw that one away too.
By October, Harbor Street employed twenty-three people.
Seventeen were former Northline staff.
One afternoon, Rachel walked into my office with a spreadsheet.
“We can afford five more.”
“Really?”
“Don’t sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.”
“You look disappointed.”
“There are six people I want.”
“Then find another client.”
That was Rachel.
No miracles.
Just math.
That evening, Priya called.
“Nick wants to settle.”
I leaned back.
“With me?”
“Wrongful termination, defamation, device intrusion, related claims. Yes.”
“How much?”
She named a number.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
I stared at the wall.
For a family that had spent September worrying about mortgage payments, half a million dollars did not sound real.
“What does he want?”
“Confidentiality. Mutual non-disparagement. Release of civil claims.”
“Does it affect investigations?”
“No.”
I thought about Mia reading lies about me.
Laura’s business reviews.
The remote wipe.
The forged signatures.
The morning Nick told me I should have left Eleanor dying on the roadside.
“Will Darius be protected?”
“No.”
“Maya?”
“No.”
“Evan?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
Priya was quiet.
“You should discuss it with Laura.”
“I will.”
“You can settle your claims without abandoning theirs.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“But I don’t want his version of the story buried because he paid me.”
Priya sighed.
“You have a distressing tendency to make my job morally complicated.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You aren’t.”
She was right.
Two days later, prosecutors charged Nick with multiple counts related to fraud, falsified business records, and identity misuse.
Additional charges remained possible.
He pleaded not guilty.
News vans appeared outside the courthouse.
This time I did not go.
I was in a client meeting.
Life was moving forward.
Then, just when I thought the worst was finally behind us, Daniel called.
His voice sounded wrong.
“Sebastian, are you sitting down?”
“What happened?”
“My mother collapsed.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“Vale headquarters.”
“Is she—”
“She’s alive.”
I closed my eyes.
“They’re taking her into surgery.”
I stood.
“I’m coming.”
“There’s something else.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Before they sedated her, she asked me to tell you the board meeting is tomorrow.”
“What board meeting?”
“The annual budget vote.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our mobile-care campaign is included in a discretionary expansion package.”
My chest tightened.
Without Eleanor present, the board coalition backing the expansion was uncertain.
“How uncertain?”
Daniel exhaled.
“If the package fails, Harbor Street loses sixty percent of next year’s contracted work.”
I looked through the glass at twenty-three employees.
Twenty-three families.
“I thought the contract was signed.”
“The pilot is. The expansion isn’t.”
“When is the vote?”
“Nine tomorrow morning.”
“And your mother is in surgery.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Daniel was silent for a moment.
May you like
Then he said:
“Come convince them without her.”
