Chapter 6 - The Audit
David Miller quickly opened the binder, his eyes scanning the columns of numbers printed in red and black ink. As his eyes moved down the page, his face slowly turned as grey as Arthur’s.
"Arthur..." David whispered, looking at his client with horror. "What is this?"
"What is what?" Arthur stammered, sweating profusely. "It’s standard corporate bookkeeping!"
"It's wire fraud, Mr. Sterling," Marcus Vance—Ethan’s brother and lead counsel—stated calmly from the corner of the room. "Over the past eighteen months, you transferred approximately three point two million dollars from the employee pension trust into offshore holding accounts in New Cayman to cover the operational losses of your main shipping line."
Arthur’s mouth fell open. "I... I was going to replace those funds! Once the municipal contract went through!"
"The municipal contract that Vance Global rejected six weeks ago?" Ethan asked, leaning back in his leather chair. "You were using employee retirement funds as an unauthorized personal credit line, Arthur. That isn't a bad joke. That is a federal crime."
"No..." Arthur whimpered, turning his head frantically toward me. "Jessi... Jessi, you know me! I’m not a criminal! I did it to keep the company afloat! I did it to protect our employees!"
"You did it to maintain your status at the country club, Arthur," I said, my voice cold, calm, and completely devoid of emotion. "You did it so you could buy Chloe a two-hundred-thousand-dollar wedding gown and pretend to your friends that you were a self-made tycoon."
"Jessi, please..." Arthur dropped out of the leather chair, falling onto his knees on the hardwood floor of the office. He reached his hands out toward me, tears streaming down his face, his body shaking violently. "I’m your father! I raised you! I gave you a home!"
I looked down at the man kneeling at my feet.
For thirty-two years, this man had made me feel small. He had made me feel like an outsider in my own home, a disappointment who had to work twice as hard just to earn a passing glance of approval. I had spent my twenties achieving two master's degrees, building a successful career as an independent financial consultant, and marrying the love of my life—all while hiding it from him because I knew he would try to claim my success as his own or belittle it to protect his fragile ego.
And now, he was on his knees in front of me, sobbing like a child.
"You gave me a home, Arthur," I said softly, looking him straight in his bloodshot eyes. "And then you spent thirty-two years making sure I knew I didn't belong in it."
"What do you want?" Arthur wept, his hands falling to the floor. "What do you want from me?!"
"I want the truth," I said. "I want you to call a press conference at three o'clock today. I want you to publicly resign as CEO of Sterling Logistics. And I want you to admit—in front of every news camera in Boston—that your daughter Jessi did not 'fail to find a man,' but rather spent three years protecting this family from your own financial ruin."
Arthur stared at me, his mouth open, paralyzed by the absolute destruction of his pride.
"And if I don't?" Arthur whispered.
May you like
Ethan leaned forward, his elbows resting on the mahogany desk, his grey eyes locked onto my father like a predator watching its prey.
"If you don't, Arthur," Ethan said smoothly, "my legal team will deliver this binder directly to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts at three-fifteen. And you will spend the rest of your sixties in a federal correctional facility."
