Chapter 5 - The Trap Springs
Arthur Pendelton picked up the document, his eyes scanning the red judicial stamp at the top of the page. Within three seconds, his jaw dropped in absolute horror.
"Ethan... what is the meaning of this?" Arthur demanded, his voice echoing across the silent boardroom. "This is an emergency freeze order issued by the Chancery Court of Delaware!"
"What?!" Ethan yelled, rushing to Arthur’s side and snatching the document from his hands. "That’s impossible! On what grounds?!"
"On the grounds of grand larceny, corporate embezzlement, and the systematic theft of forty-two million dollars from the primary treasury," I said, my voice ringing clear and steady through the room.
The boardroom erupted into immediate chaos. The other seven directors jumped up from their chairs, shouting questions and staring at Ethan with looks of wild disbelief.
"She’s lying!" Ethan roared, slamming his fist onto the table, his face contorting into a mask of pure rage as he pointed at me. "She’s a bitter, unstable woman! She attacked my assistant in our kitchen this morning because she’s jealous of my business success! She’s trying to ruin this deal out of spite!"
Chloe immediately began to sob, clutching her sling-bound arm theatrically. "It’s true! She pushed me! She’s out of her mind!"
I didn't lose my temper. I turned to the lead SEC agent beside me and nodded.
The agent walked over to the wall-mounted presentation display, plugged in my silver USB drive, and tapped the screen twice.
The large eighty-inch monitors on both sides of the boardroom lit up instantly.
Instead of financial growth charts, the screens displayed a high-definition video recording with crystal-clear audio.
It was the interior of my kitchen from this morning.
The camera angle was high, perfectly capturing Chloe standing near the stove, looking around to ensure no one was watching. The audio played clearly through the high-end boardroom speakers:
Chloe’s voice echoed loudly: "Ethan... I’m scared. She's looking at me like she wants to kill me."
Then, the video showed Chloe picking up the hot plate, walking toward the stairs where I was standing five steps up, and deliberately throwing her hands into the air, tossing the plate onto the floor, and casting herself backward onto the marble tile.
The video clearly showed that I had never even stepped down to the lower floor. I was three feet away from her, my hands resting calmly on the wooden banister.
The boardroom went dead silent.
Chloe’s theatrical sobs died instantly in her throat. She stared at the monitor, her face turning from pale to a ghastly, ghostly white.
Ethan stood frozen, staring at the screen as the video looped, showing Chloe’s calculated fall over and over again.
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"You... you had cameras in the kitchen?" Ethan whispered, his voice trembling violently.
"I had cameras installed in every room of the house three weeks before you returned, Ethan," I said softly, stepping closer to him. "Did you really think I didn't know why you were staying in Chicago?"
