Chapter 5 - The Audit of the Shadow
"You're bluffing," Bradley gasped, his hands beginning to shake. "You need me to manage the Western distribution contracts!"
"We don't need a thief, Bradley," I said coldly.
Arthur opened the folder, revealing dozens of red-stamped bank transfers and internal audit logs.
"Over the past eighteen months," Arthur explained, "you embezzled eight hundred and forty thousand dollars from the Western regional maintenance fund, funneling the money into a shell corporation named Apex Horizon LLC to pay off your private sports gambling debts in Las Vegas and buy your mother a luxury condo in Scottsdale."
Bradley turned ghostly white. The sweat beaded on his forehead, trickling down his temple.
"Maddie... listen to me," Bradley stammered, his arrogance collapsing into desperate, pathetic pleading. "It was an investment! I was going to pay it back! I was under immense pressure!"
"You threw me into a freezing pool for your family's amusement, Bradley," I said, standing up to my full height, looking down at him from across the table. "You thought my kindness was weakness. You thought because I stayed silent while your mother insulted me, I would let you steal my family’s legacy."
"Maddie, please... think of our marriage!"
"Our marriage died the second you put your hands on me in Aspen," I said.
The boardroom doors opened again.
Two detectives from the Denver Police Department's Financial Crimes Division stepped into the room, holding an arrest warrant.
"Bradley Sterling," Detective Miller announced. "You are under arrest for grand larceny, corporate embezzlement, and wire fraud."
Bradley scrambled backward, but the security guards grabbed his arms, forcing him over the conference table. The steel handcuffs clicked shut around his wrists with brutal finality.
As they dragged him toward the executive elevators, Bradley looked back at me, tears of humiliation spilling down his pale face.
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"Madison! Please! Tell them to drop the charges! My mother will lose her house!"
I didn't answer. I turned my back, looking out the panoramic glass windows at the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, feeling the heavy chains of four wasted years fall away forever.
