Chapter 4 - The Panic Behind the Mask
The dining room descended into absolute, suffocating chaos. Mom looked between us, her hands shaking as she set her napkin down on the table. She had spent decades believing Grant was the successful pillar of our family, while I was the eccentric wanderer who refused to settle down. Now, the entire hierarchy of our family—and apparently, a massive corporate empire—had inverted in less than five minutes.
"What transition team?" Grant demanded, finally finding his voice as he jumped out of his chair, staring at his wife with wild eyes. "Celia, what is she talking about? What payments?"
Celia didn't answer him. She slammed her palms onto the table, leaning across the spread of food as hot tears spilled over her eyeliner.
"Please tell me you haven't approved Grant’s lease settlement yet," Celia begged, ignoring her husband completely as she stared directly at me. "Tell me the commercial real estate transfers for Northstar's mid-Atlantic division haven't been finalized!"
Grant reached out, grabbing his wife’s arm. "Celia, what the hell are you talking about? Why are you asking her about my commercial lease? My firm is bidding on the Northstar logistics contract next month! We're practically guaranteed to win it because—"
"Because you bribed the regional VP of Northstar's supply chain division," I interrupted quietly, setting my fork down with a definitive clink.
Grant froze. The blood drained entirely from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse. "What did you say?"
"I said," I repeated, looking straight into my brother's terrified eyes, "your firm didn't earn that logistics contract on merit. You secured it by routing a sixty-thousand-dollar consulting fee through a shell corporation registered under your wife's maiden name—the exact kind of corporate corruption my legal team flagged during the initial due diligence audit last week."
Celia let out a high-pitched, hysterical gasp and slumped back against the wall, sliding down until she was nearly crouching beside the sideboard.
Grant reached for the five-thousand-dollar check he had slid across the table earlier. His fingers were shaking so violently he could barely grip the paper. The memo line—Fresh start—stared up at him like a cruel joke written by fate itself.
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"You... you audit your own acquisitions?" Grant whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief and horror.
"I audit everything," I said, standing up slowly from my chair and smoothing down the front of my sweater. "Especially when people in my own family think they can use corporate fraud to climb the ladder while laughing at my livelihood."
