Chapter 5 - Unmasking the Corporate Fraud
Andrew backed up against the glass wall, clutching his chest, his eyes wide with a combination of shock and rising panic.
"Mariana... please!" Andrew begged, taking a desperate step toward me before two security guards blocked his path. "I was wrong! I was stressed about the business! Brenda meant nothing to me—she was just a temporary distraction! I'll kick her out today!"
"It's too late for apologies, Andrew," I said flatly.
Patricia Wells, my lead forensic attorney, pulled a stack of certified legal documents from her briefcase and held them up.
"Mr. Lawson," Patricia announced, her tone clinical and cold. "Our auditors spent the last six hours reviewing your company's secondary ledger."
"Over the last fourteen months, you systematically embezzled two point four million dollars from the Escalante operating fund to purchase luxury vehicles, designer jewelry for Miss Brenda Vance, and private vacations."
Andrew’s face turned an ugly, sickly shade of grey. "I... I was going to pay that back! It was a corporate loan!"
"It was grand larceny, Mr. Lawson," Patricia corrected him flatly. "And as of 8:00 AM today, the Federal District Prosecutor's office has been served with the complete forensic paper trail."
Before Andrew could respond, his phone rang again.
It was his mother, Margaret. Her shrieking voice was loud enough to echo through the speaker without him even answering the call:
"Andrew! Where are you?! There are police cars outside the house! Sheriff's deputies are serving an emergency eviction notice! They're putting our furniture on the street!"
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Andrew dropped his phone onto the carpet. It cracked against the floorboards.
He looked at me, realizing in that single, terrible second that every single luxury, title, and dollar he had boasted about for four years had been built entirely on my generosity—a generosity he had brutally destroyed with his own hands.
