Chapter 3 - The Corporate Audit
By 7:30 AM the following morning, the private medical transport van sent by Vesper rolled up to the emergency room exit. The driver, a calm, professional ex-paramedic named Marcus, wheeled out a custom carbon-fiber medical chair that cost more than my first car. Within ten minutes, I was transferred smoothly, my right leg stabilized in a rigid locking brace, my corporate legal binder secured safely in my lap.
Sitting across from me in the climate-controlled cabin was Sarah Sterling, a senior partner at Sterling & Vance Corporate Law whom Vesper had dispatched with military efficiency. Sarah was fifty, sharp-eyed, dressed in an impeccably tailored charcoal pantsuit, and tapping away on an encrypted tablet before the van doors had even finished closing.
“Good morning, Fallon,” Sarah said without looking up from her screen. “Vesper briefed me on the drive over. Grand larceny, unauthorized wire transfers, identity fraud, and documented malicious battery resulting in severe bodily harm. If the video evidence holds up to forensic verification, we aren't just looking at civil litigation for damages and medical restitution. We’re looking at felony criminal charges that could put your sister and potentially your parents away for a very long time.”
“The video is authenticated by my cousin Briany’s cloud metadata,” I said, handing Sarah my phone. “She uploaded it directly to a shared family album before Sutton realized what was captured. And as for the financial transfers, my mother used my old backup credentials to drain twelve thousand five hundred dollars from my business account to pay the Grand Azure Resort's master ledger.”
Sarah took the phone, reviewing the file with the cold detachment of an apex predator inspecting a weak link in a competitor's balance sheet. A slow, appreciative smile crept across her lips.
“Oh, this is exquisite,” Sarah murmured. “Your family made one fatal assumption, Fallon: they assumed because you work in aviation safety, you’re passive on the ground. They didn't realize that people who audit multi-ton aircraft for structural flaws know exactly how to trace financial and emotional embezzlement.”
“What’s our first move?” I asked, looking out the tinted window as the city skyline gave way to sprawling coastal estates where the Grand Azure Resort sat perched above the Pacific.
“We don't go to the hospital room, and we don't go to your parents' rental villa,” Sarah said smoothly, snapping her tablet shut. “We walk straight into the resort’s main administrative office during the peak of the pre-wedding brunch. We serve them with an emergency freeze on all master event accounts funded by your stolen capital, and we notify the venue's general manager that their primary event space is currently hosting a crime scene involving fraudulent contracts.”
“And my family?”
“Your family,” Sarah said, her eyes flashing with clinical satisfaction, “is about to experience what a real audit looks like.”
Forty-five minutes later, the medical van pulled up to the sweeping cobblestone driveway of the Grand Azure Resort. String quartets weren't playing anymore. Instead, the manicured lawns were buzzing with wedding coordinators, florists, and groomsmen frantically pacing near the entrance. The rehearsal dinner was scheduled to transition into the pre-wedding brunch in less than an hour, and tension hung over the property like a gathering storm.
Marcus wheeled me through the glass double doors, my carbon-fiber chair gliding smoothly across the polished lobby marble. Sarah flanked my right side, carrying a heavy leather briefcase stamped with her firm's gold insignia.
As we crossed toward the grand staircase—the exact spot where my tibia had been reduced to gravel less than twelve hours earlier—a familiar, shrill voice pierced the hum of conversation.
“Fallon? What on earth are you doing here in that ridiculous chair? Security! Get this wheelchair out of the lobby, it ruins the bridal entrance aesthetic!”
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I raised my eyes. Standing on the second-tier landing in a pristine white designer pantsuit was Sutton, her face flushed with champagne and panic, flanked by my mother Althia and my father Stellin.
They had expected an apology. They were about to get an eviction notice.
