Chapter 6 - The Audit of Arthur Vance
By 8:00 AM the following morning, while Jenny and Toby were resting safely in an executive private guest suite on the top floor of the Vitelli Tower overlooking Lake Michigan, I walked into my headquarters boardroom.
My senior forensic accounting team and Chief Legal Counsel, Elena Ruiz, sat around the forty-foot mahogany conference table.
"Elena," I said, unbuttoning my suit jacket and sitting at the head of the table. "I want every financial ledger, bank statement, and property holding associated with Arthur Vance and Vanguard Holdings audited by noon."
Elena projected the digital files onto the massive wall monitors.
"We worked through the night, Marco," Elena reported, pointing to a web of unauthorized shell transactions. "Arthur Vance has been using Vanguard Holdings as a private extortion vehicle. He forged David Reeves’ signature on a fraudulent personal guarantee note two weeks after David passed away in an auto accident last year."
"And the architectural patents?" I asked.
"David Reeves held the master structural engineering patents for the high-rise vibration dampening systems used in sixteen commercial skyscrapers downtown," Elena explained. "The patents generate over 1.8 million dollars in annual licensing royalties. Vance diverted those royalties into offshore accounts in Panama while sending fake debt collection notices to Jenny to force her into total poverty."
My hands rested flat on the polished wood of the table.
"He starved a child and stole millions from a grieving mother using my company's name," I said, my voice vibrating with lethal, controlled authority.
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"What is your order, Marco?"
"Notify the United States Attorney’s Financial Crimes Division, freeze Vance’s domestic escrow accounts, and schedule an emergency shareholder confrontation for three o'clock this afternoon."
