When Her Close Friend Demands She Liquidate Her $3.2 Million Trust To Cover Her Husband’s Gambling Debts, A New Corporate Auditor Unveils Divorce Papers And Freezes Their Joint Assets.
“I want access to Julian’s trading ledgers,” I said, my voice steady, even as a chill snaked up my spine.
Eleanor’s lips pressed into a thin line, her usual composed facade cracking. “Maya, this isn’t how we do things. We can discuss this in the morning.”
“No,” I cut her off. “I’m Senior Audit Director. I’m doing it now.”
The silence in my office stretched, thick and heavy. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the Chicago skyline glittered, oblivious.
Eleanor hesitated for a long moment, her eyes darting between me and the closed office door. She knew I had the authority. My gaze did not waver.
Finally, she let out a tight breath. “Fine. But it’s late. You’ll only find what you’re looking for to cover Julian’s mistake.” She turned, her heels clicking sharply on the polished floor. “The data room is down the hall.”
I followed her, my mind already racing through audit protocols. We reached the secure data room. Eleanor swiped her access card, the lock clicking softly, and pushed the heavy door open.
She gestured vaguely at a row of terminals. “Everything’s on the main server. Julian’s department, trading ledgers, all of it.”
I nodded, pulling up a chair. The room was cold, sterile, lit by the glow of monitors. Eleanor hovered for a moment, then seemed to decide her presence was unnecessary.
“I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” she said, her tone clipped, and left, the door sighing shut behind her.
I logged into the system, my fingers flying over the keyboard. Julian’s department. Options trading. I began to cross-reference his reported losses with the general ledger, pulling up quarterly statements and daily transaction logs.
The first hour was a blur of numbers, codes, and dates. My eyes scanned for anomalies. It didn’t take long.
A series of significant outflows caught my attention, labeled vaguely as “operational adjustments” or “software licensing fees.” These were always tricky to flag without deeper investigation. But the amounts were disproportionate for a team of his size.
I pulled up the associated vendor invoices. My brow furrowed. The “vendors” were shell companies, their addresses leading to mailboxes in strip malls. And the “software” costs were astronomical, far exceeding market rates for the licenses Julian supposedly procured.
Then I saw it. A series of transfers, disguised as “departmental overhead overruns,” that precisely matched the sums of Julian’s known options losses Eleanor had mentioned. Only they weren’t booked to a separate liability account. They were flowing directly out of *my* department’s budget line items – lines I’d only recently established as Senior Audit Director.
My breath hitched. This wasn’t just Julian’s gambling. This was a deliberate, calculated scheme to reclassify his personal losses as legitimate business expenses, pushing them onto other departments, specifically mine. And Eleanor knew. She *had* to know.
A wave of nausea washed over me. This wasn’t just about Julian being reckless. This was corporate fraud, and they were using my new role, my department, as the cover. The “mistake” Eleanor had referenced was a lie.
Just then, my phone buzzed. It was Eleanor.
“Are you still there?” she asked, her voice strained.
“I found them,” I said, my voice flat, holding back the tremor I felt. “The discrepancies. Your brother has been funneling his gambling losses through my departmental budget.”
There was a pause, a sharp intake of breath on her end. Then, a new, colder tone settled in. “Maya, I warned you about poking around. Julian has allies. Powerful ones. You don’t want to make an enemy of the Daugherty family.”
“Is that a threat, Eleanor?”
“It’s a warning,” she snapped. “Arthur Daugherty, our board chairman? He’s Julian’s uncle. He values family loyalty above all else. He’s already aware of your… refusal to cooperate.”
My stomach clenched. This was her move. Escalation. She wasn’t going to let me quietly uncover this. She was circling the wagons.
“He’s being informed that you’re creating internal instability,” she continued, her voice gaining confidence, “that you’re disrupting operations with baseless accusations. You need to drop this, Maya. Now. Or your career at Oakhaven, and perhaps beyond, will be very short.”
The line clicked dead. I stared at the screen, the glowing figures of Julian’s deceit laid bare. She wasn’t asking for my inheritance anymore. She was threatening my professional existence. I had to move faster, and with more force than I’d ever anticipated.
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