Chapter 9 - THE VOTE
At 10:03 the next morning, my mother voted me out of operational control.
She used my shares to do it.
I sat at the opposite end of a conference table with independent counsel while Margaret occupied my father’s old chair.
Carla did not attend.
Martin sat directly behind Margaret.
The proxy had not been proven genuine.
It also had not yet been proven false.
That gray area was enough.
Margaret voted to place me on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into the missing $4.8 million.
I nearly stood up.
Raymond caught my eye and shook his head.
Martin wanted an outburst.
I wouldn't give him one.
“Who authorized the Alder Crest transfers?” I asked.
Martin answered.
“That is precisely what the investigation will determine.”
“You signed three vendor approvals.”
“As counsel.”
“My wife found your signature.”
“Your wife also had corporate documents inside a suitcase filled with your family’s valuables.”
There it was.
The frame.
Now used in a boardroom.
I turned to Margaret.
“You watched Carla pack that suitcase.”
She folded her hands.
“I saw Irene with it before you arrived.”
A lie.
Simple.
Cold.
The woman who had once sat beside my hospital bed after I broke my arm at twelve years old was now helping someone imply that my pregnant wife was a thief.
The vote passed four to two.
My executive credentials were suspended.
Then IT director Naomi Chen entered.
Naomi had worked for me for eleven years.
She looked sick.
“Austin, I need your company phone and backup security token.”
“You know this proxy is disputed.”
“I have a board directive.”
I gave them to her.
Then I asked about the tablet taken from my London hotel.
Her face changed.
“What tablet?”
“The one your department collected Monday night.”
“We didn't collect anything.”
I stared at her.
“I received an IT security notice.”
“From what address?”
I forwarded the message from my personal phone.
Naomi read it.
“That looks like ours.”
“Is it?”
She checked the header.
“No.”
The domain had one extra letter buried in the middle.
A perfect imitation at a glance.
Someone had created a fake internal address, sent me an urgent pickup order, and arranged for a courier to remove the one device containing my corporate digital certificate.
“Can you trace the request?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
Martin stood behind us.
“You no longer have authority to direct IT personnel.”
Naomi looked at him.
Then at me.
For the first time, I wondered whether she had known more than she was saying.
Ten minutes later, she confiscated my remaining company access.
An hour after that, Martin’s office announced that preliminary authentication indicated the forged proxy had been created using my own digital certificate.
The certificate stored on the missing London tablet.
My signature had not merely been copied.
May you like
Someone had temporarily become me.
📖 The stolen tablet explained how my identity was used, but tracing who arranged the pickup forced me to question an employee I had trusted for more than a decade. 👇
