Chapter 4 - The Final Audit
An hour later,
my lead attorney,
Marcus,
arrived at the penthouse with a team of four junior associates.
They were carrying boxes of documents,
all of them related to the final audit of the Cobb estate.
“He’s in custody,”
Marcus said,
setting his briefcase on the kitchen island.
“His mother is currently being processed as well.
She tried to slap a female officer at the station.”
I leaned against the counter,
watching the city come to life below me.
The sun was a brilliant orange,
casting a warm glow over the water,
but I felt as cold as ice.
“What’s the damage,
Marcus?”
I asked.
“Besides the attempt to drill my door?”
“He’s officially insolvent,”
Marcus replied,
pulling out a summary sheet.
“Once he realizes that the 'marital settlement' he fought for—the one where he took the 'cash accounts' and you kept the 'worthless tech firm'—is actually a disaster,
he’ll try to sue to reopen the case.”
Ronald had insisted on taking the two million dollars in our joint checking and savings accounts,
thinking he was being clever by leaving me with the "unstable" Aletheia Holdings.
He didn't know that Aletheia had just signed a merger agreement with a Silicon Valley giant worth four hundred million dollars.
He had taken the crumbs while I kept the bakery.
“He can try,”
I said,
taking a sip of my coffee.
“But the paperwork is ironclad.
He signed the waiver of interest in Aletheia on three separate occasions,
each time in exchange for a luxury car or a vacation for his mother.”
“He sold his future for a fleet of Porsches and some first-class tickets to Paris.”
Marcus nodded,
a grim smile on his face.
“We’ve already initiated the seizure of the cars.”
“Since they were purchased with funds diverted from the Aletheia operating account without board approval,
they qualify as stolen assets.”
I thought about Priscilla’s face when she realized her designer handbags and jewelry were going to be auctioned off to pay for her son’s legal defense.
The "family tradition" she loved so much was about to be sold to the highest bidder on a government website.
“What about the charity auction?”
I asked.
“The necklace?”
“The organizers have already been notified,”
Marcus said.
“They’re revoking her membership.
The story of her card being declined has already hit the social blogs.”
I felt a strange sense of peace.
For five years,
I had been the "broke" girl from a middle-class background who was "lucky" to marry into a legacy.
I had tolerated the insults,
the subtle digs at my family,
the way they talked about my "little job" as if I were a secretary.
I had hidden my wealth because I wanted to be loved for who I was,
not for what I had.
And in the end,
I found out that without the money,
there was no love.
There was only a parasite looking for a host.
The "multi-million-dollar secret" wasn't just about the bank accounts.
May you like
It was about the power I had held all along,
and the fact that I was finally willing to use it.
