Chapter 4 - Serena Wasn’t Just His Mistress
Serena Vale was twenty-nine.
Lucas met her at a hospitality conference.
Their affair had lasted at least eight months.
But the forensic accountant found something stranger.
Serena was also listed as a consultant for Pacific Crest.
Payments to her were coded as brand-development expenses.
Hotel rooms became travel research.
Jewelry became influencer partnership costs.
Private dinners became client acquisition.
Lucas had transformed adultery into bookkeeping.
Then came the second layer.
Pacific Crest charged Lumina for services performed by actual vendors I
had already paid directly.
Duplicate invoices.
Inflated reimbursements.
False consulting retainers.
The preliminary questionable total reached $412,700.
My stomach tightened when I first saw it.
Beatrice had known about Serena.
But had she known about the vendor scheme?
Her restaurant speech suggested she knew restaurant money funded the
affair.
That was relevant.
It did not automatically prove she knew every transfer was improper.
I wanted evidence.
May you like
Not revenge dressed as certainty.
So I let her keep talking.
