Chapter 12 - The Audit of Sins
By seven in the morning, the penthouse floor of Vance Tower felt less like an executive suite and more like a tactical command center. The plush burgundy carpets and gilded portraits of Vance patriarchs that Eleanor had curated for decades were gone—shipped off to storage before dawn. In their place stood clean glass partitions and rows of high-speed servers humming with quiet efficiency.
"Take a look at this, Evelyn," Marcus said, laying a thick leather-bound dossier onto the solid oak desk that now belonged to me.
I sat down, sipping black coffee, and flipped through the pages. The numbers were staggering. "Three hundred and eighty million dollars funneled through shell corporations registered in the Cayman Islands over the last four years alone. All signed off by Eleanor Vance under the guise of 'international market development.'"
"It gets worse," Marcus pointed to a highlighted ledger. "It wasn’t development. It was hush money. Julian wasn't just gambling and funding his mistress. He was using company assets to cover up a failed real estate acquisition in Macau that nearly bankrupted their foreign branch. They forged the quarterly audits, Evelyn. Had you not executed the takeover yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission would have raided this tower within ninety days."
A cold smile touched my lips. "Eleanor thought she was preserving her family’s precious legacy. In reality, she was steering it straight off a cliff, hoping to pass the smoking wreckage to anyone foolish enough to buy in."
"Julian is completely exposed," Marcus noted. "His name is on seven of the forged transit authorizations. If we hand this binder over to the federal prosecutor, he’s looking at fifteen years minimum."
I closed the file with a deliberate, echoing thud.
"Not yet," I said calmly. "Going to prison is an escape for a man like Julian Vance. In a cell, he gets three meals a day and the luxury of playing the tragic fallen prince. I want him to walk the streets of this city knowing that every single door that once flew open for him is welded shut. I want him to feel what it’s like to have zero balance, zero friends, and zero future."
"Then what is your first order as Chairman?" Marcus asked, his eyes gleaming with respect.
May you like
I stood and walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, overlooking the sprawling skyline of Chicago. "Liquidate the Michigan Avenue penthouse. Evict Julian Vance by noon."
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