Chapter 5 - Unraveling the WebFor the next forty-eight hours, the executive conference room on the sixty-fourth floor of Vale Meridian Capital became my war room.
Alexander placed his elite internal audit team at my disposal. With unlimited resources and corporate-grade financial tracking software at my fingertips, we tore into the data streams surrounding Cedar Lane Consulting.
What we uncovered went far beyond simple blackmail or child support extortion.
Elena hadn’t just been skimming money to fund Claudia’s London lifestyle. She had been operating a systematic embezzlement pipeline. For over three years, using forged signatures and dummy invoices, Elena had siphoned millions of dollars from various Vale philanthropic trusts, disguising them as administrative overhead for medical logistics.
“Look at this transaction node,” I pointed out to Alexander and Marcus late into the night, highlighting a glowing red cluster on the digital whiteboard. “My mother wasn't just gambling with hush money. She used your corporate accounts to clear out her own secret debts, hiding the deficit inside pediatric healthcare grants.”
Alexander stood behind my chair, his hand resting on the backrest. The warmth of his proximity sent a strange, unexpected shillar through my spine, but I kept my eyes locked on the glowing spreadsheets.
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“She thought because I’m a billionaire, a few hundred thousand a month wouldn’t register on my radar,” Alexander murmured coldly. “She miscalculated. She didn't count on having a forensic accountant for a daughter.”
“Greed makes people sloppy,” I replied, typing the final keystroke of the audit report. “The trap is set.”
