Chapter 11 - The Inheritance Audit
The morning sun hit the glass façade of Vale Tower with a blinding intensity, but inside the private office on the forty-second floor, the atmosphere was as cold as winter steel.
I sat behind the massive mahogany desk that had once belonged to Adrian’s grandfather, reviewing the consolidated quarterly financial reports. The numbers were staggering, but what caught my eye wasn't the profit margins or the asset yields. It was a series of irregular, high-value transfers originating from a dormant subsidiary called Vanguard Holdings.
The door opened quietly, and Adrian walked in, carrying two cups of black coffee. He placed one on my desk and leaned against the edge, watching me closely.
“You’ve been staring at those spreadsheets for three hours,” Adrian noted, his voice carrying a warm, grounding undertone. “Even the most ruthless corporate executives take a break for lunch, Elena.”
“This isn't just about corporate profit, Adrian,” I said, sliding the tablet across the desk toward him. “Look at Vanguard Holdings. Right before Victoria was arrested, her legal team tried to siphon twenty million dollars into an offshore account registered in the Bahamas. But the transaction was blocked because her voting rights were frozen.”
Adrian glanced at the screen, his expression instantly hardening. The relaxed posture vanished, replaced by the sharp, calculating focus of a billionaire CEO who realized an internal threat was still lingering.
“Vanguard was supposed to be dissolved a decade ago,” Adrian muttered, tapping the screen to pull up the corporate history tree. “It was a holding vehicle grandfather set up specifically for emergency liquid assets. Only a select few family members had the cryptographic keys to authorize its movement.”
“And Victoria had one of them,” I finished for him. “Which means someone else inside this building—or within our inner circle—helped her set up those backdoor channels. She couldn't have executed those transfers alone while her assets were tied up in court.”
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Adrian straightened up, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine.
“If there’s a mole inside Vale Enterprises,” Adrian said quietly, “we’re going to find them before the sun sets.”
