Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Verified
|
I stood up from the freezing stone fountain, my knees stiff from the cold.
"Elena," I said, my voice dangerously steady. "Where are those papers right now?"
"In my cart," she said plainly, pointing to the canvas bag attached to the side of her cleaning rig. "Hotel policy says we hold recycling until midnight before dropping it in the compactor."
Before I could reply, the courtyard doors swung open with a heavy metallic click.
David Vance, my chief legal counsel, stepped into the courtyard, followed closely by my sister, Maya. Maya was wearing a dark velvet evening dress, her face pale with fury, holding her phone out like a weapon.
"Ethan!" Maya shouted, her heels clicking rapidly against the flagstones. "Thank God! We’ve been calling you for twenty minutes!"
David Vance walked up, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week, but his eyes were sharp.
"Ethan, the digital forensic team we hired traced the whistleblower IP," David said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "The forged audit documents were uploaded to the SEC portal using an encrypted VPN, but the original source files had metadata signatures matching Nolan’s personal laptop."
"I know," I said flatly.
David blinked. "You know? How?"
I gestured toward Elena and her cleaning cart. "Elena here just informed me that Nolan left shredded or un-shredded financial ledgers in his suite trash less than two hours ago."
Maya looked at Elena in shock. "Are you serious?"
Elena pulled a heavy grey plastic bag from her cart, unzipped the top, and reached inside. She pulled out a thick stack of white bond paper stamped with the Mercer Dynamics corporate seal.
Across the top of the lead page, written in Nolan’s recognizable messy handwriting, was a list of offshore account numbers and a calculated schedule for forcing a board vote to sell the company at a thirty-percent discount to Titan Holdings.
May you like
David snatched the papers, his eyes scanning the numbers rapidly under the courtyard lights.
"My God," David whispered, his jaw dropping open. "He wasn't just trying to oust you, Ethan. He's staging a hostile takeover backed by Titan Holdings. He made a deal to sell your patents out from under you for fifty million in kickbacks!"
