Chapter 3 - Freezing the Assets
By noon, the boardroom had emptied of everyone except Harrison Vance, our corporate attorney, Nora, and me. Marcus had been escorted out of the building by security after refusing to surrender his company keys—a pathetic display of defiance that ended abruptly when Harrison threatened immediate criminal referral for corporate embezzlement and wire fraud.
"The emergency injunctions have been filed," Harrison said, sliding a thick legal folder across the table toward me. He looked at me with a mixture of professional awe and genuine sympathy. "We’ve frozen all corporate credit cards issued to Marcus, blocked his administrative access codes, and placed a freeze on any company-linked accounts where Marissa Cole or her relatives were listed as authorized beneficiaries or payroll recipients."
"What about the personal liability aspect, Harrison?" I asked, sitting down and flipping open the injunction documents. "If he used company funds to sustain a private lifestyle and finance a mistress, can we pierce the corporate veil to recover assets he personally diverted?"
"Absolutely," Harrison confirmed without hesitation. "Because you own fifty percent of the voting shares as a founding partner, and because our corporate bylaws give the primary operations and financial control co-sign authority, Marcus committed blatant breach of fiduciary duty. We can freeze his personal assets tied to company dividends until restitution is paid in full. He's legally backed into a corner."
Nora adjusted her glasses, sliding a separate memo across the desk. "Victoria, you should also know that Marissa Cole attempted to access her company email and cloud drive about twenty minutes ago. Her access was automatically flagged and blocked by our IT security team. Her phone has been blowing up our HR hotline."
I felt a strange, cold clarity washing over me. For fourteen years, I had allowed Marcus to take the applause, to stand in front of the cameras at every restaurant opening, to accept the profiles in local business magazines while I sat in the background managing payroll taxes, lease negotiations, and supplier disputes. He had convinced himself—and tried to convince the world—that he was the sole architect of Ember & Vine. He forgot that a building doesn't stand because of the facade people see; it stands because of the steel framework hidden deep inside the walls.
"Let her call," I said quietly. "Let her lawyer up. But make sure every single vendor Marcus worked with on those fraudulent invoices receives an immediate audit notice. We are going to clean house from top to bottom. Every person who enabled this, every manager who looked the other way, and every fraudulent account is going to be investigated."
May you like
Harrison nodded approvingly. "I'll coordinate with the local prosecutor's office to ensure our internal audit report is handed over as an official corporate complaint of embezzlement. Marcus won't just be out of a job by the end of the week; he'll be facing felony charges if he doesn't cooperate fully with asset recovery."
I stood up, buttoned my blazer, and looked out the boardroom window one last time. The city below looked different now—sharper, brighter, and entirely under my control.
