Chapter 6 - THE TWO-MILLION-DOLLAR LIE
Croft hesitated, his fingers trembling slightly as he reached out and popped the brass latch of the velvet box.
Inside sat a massive, four-carat emerald-cut diamond ring resting on black velvet.
The investors near the table gasped.
“That’s the ring from the VIP suite!” Croft blurted out, trying to recover his footing. “See? I told you! She stole it!” He pointed a finger at Maria. “She had it hidden in her locker!”
Maria flinched, pulling Lily behind her coat.
Cole stepped in front of Maria, towering over Croft.
“That ring wasn't stolen from a VIP suite, Julian,” Cole said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp tone that cut through the entire room. “That ring was purchased three weeks ago from a jeweler in Geneva... using a Merritt Corporation offshore account.”
The board members at the table stood up instantly.
“What?” Walter Foss asked, his brow furrowing as he looked at Croft. “Julian, what is he talking about?”
“He’s lying!” Croft stammered, sweating through his tuxedo collar. “Cole has lost his mind over this maid!”
Cole pulled a stack of printed financial documents from his inside jacket pocket and tossed them onto the table beside the ring.
“For six months, Julian has been embezzling money from our commercial lease accounts,” Cole revealed to the entire room. “He created fake maintenance invoices for the hotel and funneled two million dollars into a Swiss account.”
He turned his eyes to look at Danielle, who turned deathly pale.
“Maria Delgado found the double-entry ledger in the executive office two days ago while cleaning the desk,” Cole continued. “She didn't know what it was, but she knew the numbers didn't match the housekeeping budget. She asked Julian about it this afternoon on the service stairs.”
Cole pointed toward the high-definition projection screen behind the main stage.
Marcus clicked a remote.
The security footage from the service entrance flickered onto the massive twenty-foot screen in front of two hundred wealthy guests.
There was Julian Croft, grabbing Maria’s arm, threatening her, ripping the ledger page from her hand, and tossing an envelope full of cash at her feet to bribe her into silence.
And when Maria refused to take the money, Croft called Vance and had her arrested for stealing a diamond ring he had bought with stolen corporate funds to frame her.
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The entire ballroom gasped in horror.
Danielle looked at the screen, then at Croft, then at the ring on the table, her breath catching in her throat as she realized the entire lie had been exposed in front of Chicago’s highest society.
