PART 7
“No.”
I shook my head.
“She’s a beneficiary of fraud.”
Daniel stood again.
“You can’t accuse people like this!”
“I can when I have bank records.”
I nodded toward Nina.
She opened the second folder.
“Nine million four hundred thousand dollars.”
One director looked up.
“Nine point four million?”
“Approximately.”
“Where did it go?”
Nina began listing names.
Daniel.
Melissa.
His parents.
Andrew.
Three properties.
Two investment accounts.
One holding company.
The room became colder with every name.
Then Nina placed another document on the table.
“The proposed sale agreement.”
Daniel’s expression collapsed.
One director picked it up.
“Forty-two million?”
The director looked at Daniel.
“You intended to sell the company?”
Daniel said nothing.
“Without the controlling shareholder?”
Still nothing.
I leaned forward.
“You didn’t just humiliate me.”
My voice remained calm.
“You planned to erase me.”
Daniel finally looked at me.
“I was going to give you money.”
I stared at him.
“How generous.”
“You would have been taken care of.”
“Taken care of?”
I almost laughed.
“After nine years of building this company?”
He swallowed.
“I was trying to protect us.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You were trying to protect yourself.”
The vote took less than twenty minutes.
Daniel was removed as CEO pending investigation.
Melissa was removed from her financial position.
Andrew’s consulting agreement was terminated.
The board authorized an independent forensic audit.
And because I held 51 percent of the voting shares, the decision was final.
When the vote ended, Daniel sat motionless.
He looked smaller than I had ever seen him.
The man who had once walked into every room like he owned it now couldn’t even look at me.
As I stood to leave, he whispered:
“Claire.”
I stopped.
“Please.”
I turned.
“I don’t want to lose everything.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Neither did I.”
Then I walked out.
The investigation lasted five weeks.
Those five weeks changed everything.
The forensic accountants uncovered more than we expected.
Daniel had been hiding expenses.
He had used company funds for vacations.
Private cars.
Luxury hotels.
Family renovations.
Jewelry.
Even his mother’s medical bills.
Every time someone asked him where the money came from, he said it was “business compensation.”
It wasn’t.
It was theft.
But the biggest discovery came in week four.
The auditors found an account Daniel had never disclosed.
It contained $2.1 million.
When Nina called me, I wasn’t surprised anymore.
“How?”
“Payments from suppliers.”
“Kickbacks?”
“Exactly.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then send everything to the authorities.”
Nina was quiet.
“You understand what that means?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel could face criminal charges.”
“I know.”
“And you still want to proceed?”
I thought about the anniversary dinner.
His glass raised in the air.
Cheers to the biggest mistake of my life.
“Yes.”
I didn’t do it for revenge.
I did it because if I stopped now, everything I had spent years building could happen again.
Not to me.
To someone else.
Three months later, the company looked completely different.
I became interim CEO.
Marcus became chief operating officer.
We restored the employee trust.
We returned money where we could.
We terminated the people involved.
And slowly, something unexpected happened.
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