Chapter 8 - The Confrontation at the Office
On Friday afternoon, I walked into the corporate park where Ryan worked as an inventory logistics coordinator.
I didn't make a scene in the lobby. I simply asked the receptionist to let him know that Lena Vance was here with the corporate lease documents.
Ryan emerged from the glass elevators five minutes later, wearing his company lanyard, his face pale and eyes lined with dark purple bruises of exhaustion. He had been sleeping on his mother's pull-out sofa in Batavia for four days.
"Why are you here, Lena?" he asked in a harsh whisper, steering me toward the empty visitor alcove near the decorative fountain. "Mom told me what you did to the venue. That was completely vindictive."
"What was vindictive, Ryan? Refusing to pay for your second wedding with your first girlfriend?"
His face went crimson. "It wasn't like that! Mom was just trying to see if we could recover the non-refundable balance if we—"
"If you what? Swapped brides?" I pulled a manila folder from my tote bag and held it up. "Did you know that registering a commercial business entity under a residential lease without the leaseholder's knowledge constitutes commercial fraud in Hamilton County?"
Ryan stopped mid-breath. His eyes darted to the folder in my hands.
"What are you talking about?"
"Paige's floral LLC," I said, opening the folder to display the certified state incorporation documents. "She registered Mercer Botanical Designs to unit 4B. My apartment. She listed our personal address as a commercial processing facility on state tax forms."
"She needed a physical address to get the vendor license!" he stammered, his confidence evaporating like water on hot pavement. "It was just a technicality until she leased a studio!"
"Our landlord's insurance policy strictly forbids commercial manufacturing on the premises," I said evenly. "If I hand this document to Clara at the leasing office, the building will initiate an immediate legal eviction against all unauthorized commercial occupants. Which means Paige's new business license will be revoked for filing false municipal declarations."
Ryan stepped closer, his hands shaking as he reached out toward the papers. "Lena, please. Don't do this. She invested everything into those first three autumn wedding contracts. If she loses the license, she's ruined."
"Then she should have thought about that before she called my dinner table to announce she was quitting her job," I said coldly.
May you like
"What do you want?" he pleaded, his voice breaking into a desperate whimper. "Tell me what you want."
"I want the eight thousand dollars you stole from our wedding fund to start her business," I said. "Transferred back to my account by Monday at noon. Or this entire folder goes directly to the county auditor and the building management."
