Chapter 4 - The Audit BeginsBack upstairs in the holding conference room, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Mara sat across from her father and Rebecca Lane, a steaming cup of chamomile tea warming her hands. The room was quiet, insulated from the media circus raging in the hallways by thick soundproof walls and two armed state troopers stationed outside.
"Are you sure you want to go through with the full corporate dissolution, Mara?" Rebecca asked, laying a thick stack of financial audits on the table. "We could settle for fifty percent of the liquidated assets. It would still leave you with over one hundred and fifty million dollars."
Mara took a slow sip of the tea, looking down at the silver watch her mother had given her fourteen years ago—the same watch she had worn every single day Derek grew rich pretending she didn't exist.
"I don't want his money, Rebecca," Mara said quietly. "I want the company back."
Thomas Mercer smiled gently, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his calloused one.
"You built it, sweetheart," Thomas said. "Every line of code, every logistics protocol, every brick of that warehouse in Gastonia. Derek didn't know how to run a ledger until you taught him in our kitchen during our Sunday dinners."
"He thought he was invincible," Mara murmured. "He thought because I stayed quiet, I was weak."
"People often mistake patience for powerlessness," Thomas said, his eyes hardening as his phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the screen. "That was the director of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. The asset freeze on Sloan Urban Systems was approved three minutes ago. All corporate accounts, personal checking, and real estate holdings belonging to Derek Sloan have been locked pending a grand jury indictment for mail fraud, perjury, and embezzlement."
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "That was fast, Judge."
"When a man commits assault in front of a chief judge and attempts to steal a federal witness's intellectual property, the wheels of justice tend to turn with remarkable velocity," Thomas replied dryly.
Just then, the conference room door clicked open.
A junior clerk slipped inside, looking pale and clutching a tablet.
"Judge Mercer... Mrs. Sloan... you need to see this."
The clerk turned the tablet around and placed it on the table.
It was a live local news broadcast from WBTV Charlotte. The banner at the bottom of the screen flashed in aggressive red letters: BREAKING: SEC AND FBI RAID SLOAN URBAN SYSTEMS HEADQUARTERS; FOUNDER DEREK SLOAN FACES MULTIPLE FELONY CHARGES.
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Footage showed federal agents in blue jackets carrying cardboard boxes out of the gleaming glass-and-steel skyscraper that bore Derek’s name in giant chrome letters.
And standing right behind the police tape, soaked to the bone in the relentless rain, was Derek Sloan himself—screaming frantically at a cameraman while two state troopers gently, but firmly, guided him toward the back of a black squad car.
