Chapter 3 - The Inheritance
The private dining room at Chicago’s most exclusive steakhouse was quiet, smelling faintly of aged leather, mahogany, and expensive cabernet. Thomas Mitchell sat at the head of the table, his silver hair neatly combed, his sharp blue eyes looking through Lauren with the diagnostic precision of a surgeon.
“You should have let me handle him years ago,” Thomas said, swirling a glass of red wine without tasting it. “I told you when you married him, Lauren. He has the ambition of a shark and the backbone of a jellyfish. He wanted your name on the door because it bought him entry into rooms his pedigree could never open.”
“I didn't come here to rehash my wedding day, Dad,” Lauren said, stirring her sparkling water with a tiny glass rod. “I came because you apparently saw the expense flags before I even finished my audit.”
“I’ve kept an auditor on retainer watching the secondary accounts ever since Andrew pushed for that corporate restructuring last spring,” Thomas replied smoothly, leaning back in his chair. “Call it fatherly paranoia. Or call it knowing a fraud when I see one. The girl, Chloe Bennett—she’s not just a passing distraction. Do you know who her uncle is?”
Lauren paused, her glass hovering inches from her lips. “What does her family have to do with this?”
“Her uncle is Richard Bennett,” Thomas said, his voice dropping into a grave, deliberate cadence. “The principal stakeholder at Meridian Capital. The exact firm that’s been trying to execute a hostile buyout of our commercial portfolio for the last six months.”
The room seemed to shrink around Lauren. The ambient murmur of the restaurant faded into a dull roar.
“Meridian Capital?” Lauren whispered, the pieces clicking together with sickening clarity. “No. That’s impossible. Andrew doesn’t have the financial acumen to coordinate a corporate raid, and Chloe is just an assistant—”
“Chloe is an operative,” Thomas corrected bluntly. “Planted in our office fourteen months ago right when Andrew started pushing for more independent authority over regional acquisitions. Think about it, Lauren. Every major commercial asset we’ve acquired this year—every confidential lease agreement, every zoning vulnerability—has passed directly across Andrew’s desk. And right through Chloe’s keyboard.”
Lauren stared at her father, a cold dread replacing her anger. All this time, she had thought her pain was purely personal—a classic, pathetic tale of a wandering husband and a young, ambitious subordinate. She had mourned the death of her marriage.
She hadn't realized she was mourning the death of her company, too.
“If the board finds out Andrew compromised proprietary data to a rival firm,” Lauren said, her voice shaking despite her best efforts, “he won’t just face a messy divorce. He’s looking at federal securities fraud.”
May you like
Thomas reached across the table, placing a heavy, weathered hand over hers. “Which is why you don’t go to the board tomorrow morning. Not yet. We need to find out how deep the infection goes before we cut the limb off.”
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