Chapter 7 - The Money Trail
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By 11:00 PM that night, Marcus was standing in the shadows of Richard's private study, holding a thick manila folder.
Richard sat behind his heavy oak desk, a glass of untouched bourbon resting near his hand. He hadn't slept in two days, but adrenaline and cold fury kept his mind terrifyingly sharp.
"You were right about her, boss," Marcus grunted, tossing the folder onto the center of the desk. "She’s not just a cruel bitch. She’s a thief."
Richard opened the file. The first page was a complex web of banking transfers, printed in harsh black ink.
"Explain," Richard commanded.
"Over the last six months, she’s been slowly siphoning funds from the estate's secondary operational accounts," Marcus detailed, pointing a scarred finger at the highlighted numbers. "It was smart. She kept the amounts just under the threshold that would trigger an automatic audit from your accounting firm. Fifty thousand here, seventy thousand there. She funneled it all through a dummy charity she set up for 'underprivileged youth'."
The irony of the charity name made Richard's jaw clench so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
"Where is the money ending up?" Richard asked, his eyes tracking the routing numbers.
"An offshore shell company registered in the Cayman Islands," Marcus answered. "But she isn't the sole signatory on that account. She has a partner."
Richard looked up, his dark eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "Who?"
"A guy named Julian Vance. On paper, he’s listed as her financial advisor. In reality, he's a known grifter from the East Coast who specializes in high-society cons."
Richard leaned back in his leather chair, the entire picture finally snapping into perfect, horrifying focus. Eleanor wasn't just starving Sophie out of sadistic spite. The cruelty was a distraction, a power play designed to keep the household in chaos and Richard’s attention diverted while she quietly drained his assets with her lover.
"She thinks I'm too busy running a four-hundred-million-dollar merger to notice her stealing the loose change," Richard murmured softly, a dark, terrifying smile touching his lips.
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"What do you want to do with the information?" Marcus asked, shifting his weight.
"We do nothing. Yet," Richard decided, closing the folder. "Let her think the trust transfer is still happening. I want her flying as high as possible. Because when she falls, I want to make sure every single bone in her body breaks."
