Chapter 7 - Empty Desks and Frozen Accounts
"This is a mistake," Ryan stammered, looking frantically between Arthur and me. "Arthur, please. You knew my work. I brought thirty million dollars in revenue to this company! You're letting personal domestic issues cloud your business judgment!"
"Do not insult my intelligence, boy," Arthur growled, slamming his palm onto the walnut table with a force that rattled the crystal water glasses. "Your domestic issues were your own disgusting business until you used company funds to finance them. But your theft from this firm, from the very people who gave you a career when you were nothing more than a mid-level telemarketer, is a crime. You didn't just steal from Apex. You stole from Claire's family legacy."
Ryan turned his desperate gaze entirely on me. He abandoned all pretense of professional dignity. He slid out of his chair and fell to his knees on the plush carpet, crawling forward a few feet before his lawyer grabbed his arm, hissing at him to get up.
"Claire, baby, please!" Ryan begged, tears streaming down his hollow cheeks. "I was an idiot! I was sick in the head! The stress, the pressure to prove myself to your family, it broke me! I did it for us! I wanted us to have our own money, so I didn't feel like I was living in your father's shadow every day! You have to believe me!"
"You did it for us?" I asked, looking down at him with genuine curiosity. "Is that why the offshore account in the Caymans was registered exclusively under Vance Horizon LLC, with instructions to wire eighty percent of the liquidated funds to an account in Switzerland under Miss Miller's name? Were you going to invite me to that Swiss chalet, Ryan? Or were you going to serve me divorce papers the moment the Pacific Rim contract closed?"
Ryan froze. His eyes darted to the dossier. He realized that Elena hadn't just found the surface transactions; she had unearthed the exit strategy he had spent two years constructing. He was going to leave me penniless, taking the skimmed millions and disappearing abroad under the guise of an unexpected corporate collapse.
"You really thought I was stupid, didn't you?" I continued, standing up slowly. "You thought that because I was quiet, because I supported you and took care of our home, that I had no mind of my own. You forgot who raised me. My father ran supply chains through war zones. You think I didn't know how to track an invoice?"
"Claire..." he wept, resting his forehead against the edge of the conference table.
"Mr. Vance," Arthur's senior legal counsel spoke up, looking at his gold wristwatch. "Two federal agents from the Department of Justice are currently waiting in the security lobby downstairs. You have precisely ten minutes to leave this building through the service elevator with your counsel and surrender yourself voluntarily, or they will escort you out in handcuffs through the main lobby at lunch hour. The choice is yours."
Ryan’s lawyer stood up immediately, gathering his briefcase. "We are leaving, Mr. Vance. Now."
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Ryan scrambled to his feet like an animal escaping a trap. He looked at me one last time, hoping to find a shred of mercy, a glimmer of the woman who used to pack his lunches and kiss him goodbye at the door.
He found nothing. Only the cold, brilliant reflection of the morning sun against the glass.
