Chapter 9 - The Office on Tryon Street
The rain started around 7:00 AM, drumming a steady, gray rhythm against the glass windows of Julian Vance’s law office on Tryon Street.
I sat across from Julian’s polished mahogany desk, holding a cup of black coffee that tasted faintly of metal. Thatcher sat beside me in a stiff leather armchair, staring fixedly at his hands. He hadn't spoken a word since we left the house. The realization that Claudine had already emptied the secondary accounts and severed all contact details had finished whatever pride he had left.
The heavy oak door opened, and Julian walked in, carrying a thick manila folder labeled Bloom & Co. Restructuring & Asset Recovery.
He didn't look at Thatcher. He looked directly at me.
"The emergency injunction was accepted by the judge thirty minutes ago," Julian said, setting the folder down on the desk. "The asset transfer to Verde Holdings LLC is legally frozen. Furthermore, the commercial registry has flagged the filing for potential identity fraud."
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since Wednesday evening in the hotel lobby. "And Claudine?"
"Her primary bank accounts associated with Verde Holdings have been subjected to an interim freeze order pending the audit," Julian said. He opened the folder and slid a printed notification across the desk. "She tried to wire forty-thousand dollars to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands at 6:00 AM today. The transaction was flagged and blocked automatically."
Thatcher flinched at the number. "Forty thousand? That was supposed to be our operating capital for the new warehouse."
"That was your share of the collateral damage, Thatcher," Julian said coldly, not bothering to hide his contempt. "If you sign this cooperating affidavit, the state prosecutor's office has indicated they will treat you as a co-conspirator-turned-witness rather than a principal defendant. If you don't sign, you're looking at federal wire fraud charges alongside her."
Thatcher swallowed hard, picked up the silver pen resting beside the document, and signed his name without looking up.
Julian pulled the papers back, checked the signature, and closed the folder with a sharp thud.
"There's one more thing," Julian said, looking at me with a serious expression. "Claudine didn't just target Bloom & Co. We ran a cross-check on her corporate history in Charlotte using her previous aliases. You aren't her first floral studio, Sloane. You're her fourth."
The office seemed to grow very quiet.
"Fourth?" I repeated.
"Four different high-end floral and design businesses across the Southeast over the last seven years," Julian said, sliding a printed sheet of corporate registry histories across the table. "Every single one of them scaled rapidly, took on heavy commercial debt, experienced a sudden 'management restructuring,' and then went into liquidation within eighteen months."
I looked down at the names of the previous businesses: Botanica Elegance in Charleston, Greenwood & Co. in Atlanta, Vanguard Floral in Nashville.
In every single case, the pattern had been identical: a trusted partner, a forged signature, a fabricated medical narrative, and a quiet financial wipeout.
"She’s a corporate predator," Hannah said quietly from the corner of the office where she had been standing by the window. "She doesn't just want the money. She likes dismantling people who built something real."
"The injunction freezes her assets, but she’s still in Charlotte," I said, looking up at Julian. "What happens when she realizes she can't access the offshore wire?"
Julian reached into the folder and pulled out a single printed text message screenshot.
May you like
"She already knows," Julian said. "She sent this to my office switchboard ten minutes ago."
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