Chapter 8 - The Price of GreedWithin forty-eight hours, the empire Ethan and Jessica had built dissolved into ash.
The forensic audit ordered by Victoria Vance uncovered a staggering web of financial deception. To fund their lavish lifestyle and buy into Reynolds-Parker luxury real estate, Ethan had embezzled corporate contingency funds—a federal offense.
Reynolds-Parker Enterprises immediately ousted Jessica Reynolds from her executive position, launching an internal investigation into her complicity in Ethan's financial crimes. The high-rise condo, the designer clothes, the luxury cars—all of it was seized by federal marshals to cover restitution and back-taxes.
Jessica packed her belongings in two cheap cardboard boxes and moved back in with her parents in a modest suburb three hours away, completely ostracized from Seattle high society. The golden girl of corporate ambition had crashed and burned, her reputation permanently stained by scandal.
And Ethan?
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Ethan Parker found himself living in a cheap, furnished studio apartment on the industrial outskirts of Seattle. Stripped of his wealth, his status, his career, and his freedom, he sat alone in the dark, staring at a single framed photograph he had managed to salvage from his old life—a picture of an empty hallway in a house that no longer belonged to him.
He had tried to trade a loyal architect for a corporate trophy, forgetting a fundamental law of physics and architecture: When you remove the load-bearing pillar to build something weaker, the entire roof comes crashing down on your head.
