CHAPTER 3
My heart plummeted into a cold, bottomless void as the air was sucked entirely out of my lungs.
"The federal prosecutor?" I stammered, taking a shaky step backward until my leg hit the arm of a leather sofa. "Why would she go to the feds? I haven't done anything illegal!"
"Haven't you?" Daniel asked, raising a single graying eyebrow as he opened the blue folder to reveal dozens of color-coded financial spreadsheets. "Does the name Vanguard Offshore Logistics mean anything to you, Julian?"
Blood rushed to my ears with a deafening roar as my hands began to tremble so violently I had to jam them deep into my suit pockets.
Vanguard Offshore Logistics was a paper company created four years ago by my senior business partner, Marcus Sterling, and me to handle international equipment acquisitions.
Or at least, that was the official narrative we presented to our board of directors and our external auditing team every tax season.
"Claire found the secondary ledger," Daniel stated, tapping his index finger against a bank wire confirmation originating from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. "The ledger detailing twelve million dollars in unregistered capital transfers routed directly into accounts managed by Vanessa Cole's holding firm."
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"No... no, that's impossible," I whispered, my voice cracking as sweat dripped down the back of my neck onto my collar. "Those files were stored on an encrypted private server in my home office!"
"Your home office where your wife had total physical access while you were spending nights in five-star hotel suites with your mistress?" Daniel countered, his voice dripping with venomous sarcasm.
