Chapter 7 - The Audit
"Mr. Vance," I said, stepping forward past Liam into the doorway so Marcus could see I wasn't cowering behind my husband's shadow. "You don't need to explain my husband's character to me. I've learned more about it in the last six hours than you have in two years."
Marcus blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his severe features before his expression hardened back into corporate ice. He glanced from me to Liam, whose shoulders were practically touching his ears.
"Good," Marcus said, stepping uninvited across the threshold into our foyer. "Then you already know he's a thief. The quarterly internal audit flagged an unauthorized wire transfer from our primary commercial development account straight into a shell corporation registered downtown under an LLC called Apex Holdings. Guess whose name is listed as the sole managing member?" He pointed a finger squarely at Liam's chest. "Your husband's."
Liam swallowed hard, staring at the floor. "Marcus, let's just go back to the office, we can look at the books—"
"Shut up, Liam," Marcus snapped, his voice whipping through the hallway with enough authority to make Liam visibly flinch. Marcus turned back to me, his tone shifting from aggressive hostility to something surprisingly calculating. "Mrs. Foster, Clara—right? Let's be entirely transparent. The firm wants to recover those funds quietly. If this goes public, our institutional investors pull out, the SEC gets involved, and the firm takes a massive hit. We don't want a public scandal."
I kept my eyes locked on his. "And what does that have to do with us?"
"It means I have a proposal," Marcus said, pulling a folded legal document from his jacket pocket and holding it out. "Liam signs a full confession of corporate misappropriation, along with an immediate, unconditional quitclaim deed transferring ownership of the downtown condominium—purchased with firm capital—back to the company. In exchange, the partners agree not to press immediate criminal charges tonight. We handle his termination quietly as an internal personnel matter."
Liam’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with desperate relief. "You won't call the police? You mean it?"
"I mean you'll walk out of this house with me right now, sign the paperwork at the office, and spend the rest of your life figuring out how to pay back what you stole without ending up in a federal penitentiary," Marcus said coldly. He looked back at me. "As for you, Clara, the firm's legal team will ensure that any joint assets bearing your name are legally cordoned off from the seizure. You and your baby won't lose your home. But your husband's career in corporate finance is permanently dead."
I looked at the document in Marcus's hand, then down at Liam, who was nodding frantically, looking like a man who had just been handed a lifeline over an active volcano. It sounded clean. It sounded like an easy way to wash our hands of the nightmare, kick Liam out, keep the house, and protect Hailey.
Except nothing about Liam's life was ever that simple.
"That's very generous of you, Mr. Vance," I said slowly, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make both men uneasy. "One minor detail, though."
Marcus frowned, his brow furrowing. "What detail?"
"You keep talking about the forty-two thousand dollars from the commercial account," I said, taking a step closer to them. "And you keep talking about Apex Holdings buying a condo downtown. But Liam didn't just work alone. He had a partner who helped him figure out how to route those subsidiary accounts."
Liam’s face drained of what little color it had left. He let out a choked gasp, shaking his head at me furiously, mouthing No, no, please.
May you like
Marcus’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Sarah Jenkins," I said clearly, watching the revelation land like a bomb in the foyer. "Senior marketing director. She didn't just share his bed, Mr. Vance. According to Liam's own text messages and financial notes, she's the one who designed the entire subsidiary routing system. And I'm guessing her name isn't on that confession paper you brought with you tonight."
