Chapter 4 - THE BOARDROOM MASSACRE
The vibration of Thaddius’s phone sounded like the buzzing of a hornet trapped in a glass jar.
He pulled it out with trembling fingers. The screen flashed with the name Julian Sterling-Cross, the ruthless octogenarian chairman of Vanguard Logistics' Board of Directors—and, unluckily for Thaddius, a man who viewed financial discrepancies with the same mercy a surgeon shows toward a malignant tumor.
Thaddius looked up at me, his eyes wide with an absolute, unadulterated horror. He didn't answer the call. He didn't dare. He just watched the screen glow until it rolled to voicemail, only for the vibration to instantly resume with a call from the chief legal counsel.
"You didn't," he choked out. "The corporate audit wasn't scheduled until November. You couldn't have accessed the offshore reconciliation files without administrative credentials."
"I am a licensed CPA with administrative forensic authority granted by your own compliance committee six months ago, remember?" I said, standing tall under the afternoon sunlight cutting through the dealership glass. "When you begged me to help you 'streamline internal reporting,' you handed me the keys to your entire financial graveyard. You thought I was your submissive little wife who would rubber-stamp your tax evasions and look the other way while you humiliated me in front of your social circle. You forgot that before I married you, I spent eight years at Deloitte hunting corporate thieves for sport."
Evangelene was hyperventilating on the sofa, clutching her chest while Cassiana furiously dialed numbers on her phone, screaming at whoever answered that her credit cards were suddenly declining.
"Lysandra, please," Thaddius said, his voice dropping into a desperate, wretched whisper that stripped away the last remaining shred of his pride. He took three quick steps toward me, lowering his head so the officers wouldn't hear his total capitulation. "Don't do this. If Julian fires me, I lose the unvested shares. I lose everything. The house, the club membership, the accounts. We can reconcile. We can tear up the divorce papers! I’ll give you fifty percent of the logistics holding company. I’ll cut my mother off! I’ll throw Cassiana out on the street! Just call Julian and tell him it was a bookkeeping error!"
I looked at this man—the man who had spent five years mocking my simple tastes, telling me I wasn't worthy of his family’s prestigious lineage, making me sit at the foot of the table during holidays while his sister insulted my clothes—and I felt nothing. Not rage, not sorrow, not even vindication. Just a profound, liberating emptiness.
"Look at yourself, Thaddius," I said softly, ensuring my words cut clean and deep. "You’re offering to sell out your own mother and sister to save your bespoke suits. That is the true Vance legacy. Hollow. Cheap. Rotten to the bone."
Officer Miller stepped forward and tapped Thaddius on the shoulder. "Mr. Vance, we have an order to escort you downtown to the Financial Crimes Bureau for an initial deposition regarding the forged loan documentation. Let’s go outside."
"I’m not going anywhere without my attorney!" Thaddius barked, pulling his arm away, but the second officer took his wrist with decisive, professional torque, snapping a pair of cold steel handcuffs around his wrists before he could take another breath.
The metallic click echoed through the dealership like a gunshot.
"No! Get your hands off him!" Evangelene shrieked, staggering to her feet, her immaculate makeup smeared across her cheeks with tears of pure fury and ruin. "Thaddius! Tell them who you are!"
"He is a suspect in a multi-million-dollar wire fraud investigation, ma'am," Officer Miller said coldly. "And if you continue to obstruct justice, you’ll be sharing a transport vehicle with him."
As the officers led Thaddius through the wide glass doors, a small crowd of onlookers gathered on the sidewalk, their smartphones held high, recording the proud, untouchable vice president of Vanguard Logistics being loaded into the back of a marked police cruiser in broad daylight.
Cassiana collapsed beside her mother, staring at the shiny gray Mercedes that would never bear her name, sobbing hysterically as her livestream notifications pinged incessantly with questions from followers asking why her brother was in handcuffs.
I turned on my heel, walked out into the crisp autumn air, and took a deep breath. For the first time in five years, the air tasted clean.
I unlocked my modest, reliable sedan parked across the street and sat behind the wheel. I took out my phone and dialed my attorney, Elena Vance-Montgomery—Thaddius’s estranged first cousin, whom the family had cast out years ago for refusing to participate in their fraudulent real estate schemes.
"Elena," I said as the line connected.
"Did you drop the hammer?" Elena’s voice was laced with razor-sharp amusement.
"The hammer dropped," I replied. "Thaddius is in custody for the dealership forgery, and the Vanguard board has the forensic files. What’s the status on the civil asset recovery?"
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"We just filed the emergency lis pendens on the Oak Brook estate and his personal brokerage accounts," Elena stated, her tone shifting into pure legal dominance. "Every asset he tried to shield from the divorce settlement is officially frozen by court order. By the time the dust settles, Lysandra, they won't even have enough cash to pay for the tow truck to take that Mercedes off the lot."
"Good," I said, putting the car in drive. "Let’s start the liquidation."
