Chapter 6 - The Federal Net Closes
“Margaret Wentworth?” Detective Miller asked, stepping up to the head of the table and flashing his badge.
Margaret’s face finally lost its color. She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. “This is an outrage! I am the Chairperson of this corporation! You cannot touch me!”
“You’re the primary suspect in an ongoing federal investigation involving wire fraud, interstate embezzlement, corporate forgery, and attempted poisoning of a protected citizen,” Miller stated calmly, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt. “Step away from the table, ma’am.”
“Mom! Do something!” Carla shrieked, looking wildly around the room at the corporate defense attorneys. But the attorneys had already quietly closed their briefcases and were slowly backing toward the exit. Rats deserting a sinking ship.
“You can’t do this to me! I built this empire with my husband!” Margaret screamed as Miller grabbed her wrists and snapped the cuffs into place. As they dragged her away toward the elevators, she turned her head back, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated venom directed straight at me. “You’ll ruin everything! You’ll lose the shipping contracts! You’ll lose it all without me!”
“Take Carla too,” I instructed Miller quietly, nodding toward my sister, who was now sobbing hysterically in her chair as a federal marshal hauled her to her feet.
As the elevator doors closed on my mother and sister, the boardroom fell into a profound, suffocating silence. The seven board members sat frozen, staring down at their tablets, suddenly looking very small and very vulnerable.
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I walked slowly to the head of the table, pulled out the high-backed leather chair, and sat down. I picked up the CEO nameplate—Austin Wentworth—and set it squarely in front of me.
“Now,” I said, looking around the table at the trembling directors. “Let’s review the actual financial audit of Wentworth Global, starting with every unauthorized asset transfer executed over the last three years.”
