Chapter 7 - THE THREE VENDORS
The total reached $4.88 million.
Harbor Ridge.
Kingswell Projects.
Northline Strategies.
Payments over twenty-two months.
Every vendor carried some version of my approval.
Some used my digital certificate.
Others showed electronic acknowledgments from my CFO account.
The auditors compared timestamps to travel records, building-access logs, and laptop telemetry.
Four approvals happened while I was physically inside Vance Meridian headquarters.
Those frightened me most.
If Julian could impersonate me only from home, the scheme was simple.
Those four suggested someone inside the company helped.
The audit committee expanded the investigation.
That was when Marcus became dangerous.
He held no formal executive title, but he knew employees.
He had spent years behaving as if being Samuel Vance's son gave him access everywhere.
One accounts-payable supervisor admitted Marcus frequently entered the office using guest credentials.
Sometimes Teresa came too.
Serena rarely did.
Julian had not entered headquarters officially in nearly a year.
Then the supervisor disclosed a strange practice.
For “family-directed” invoices, she was instructed to process packets once Clara's electronic approval appeared.
Who gave that instruction?
Former controller Paul Mercer.
Paul had retired six months earlier.
I trusted him.
That hurt.
The auditors contacted him.
He agreed to speak.
Then canceled.
His attorney said he would not answer questions without formal process.
A trusted professional had become suspicious.
Meanwhile the divorce intensified.
Julian requested temporary exclusive use of the marital home.
He claimed I had “voluntarily abandoned” it after the dinner.
Dana responded with hospital records, the police report, and the temporary no-contact order.
The judge allowed me temporary use of a furnished corporate apartment instead while the protective-order hearing remained pending.
Not because Julian had won.
Because forcing us into the same home made no sense.
Still, I hated losing my house.
Teresa remained at Briarwood.
Marcus remained arrogant.
Serena remained nervous.
Julian remained furious.
And I was living out of two suitcases despite being the only person at that dinner who had not built a financial secret.
Then the protective-order hearing arrived.
Julian testified that he slapped me only after I “lunged at Teresa.”
Evelyn testified she had seen me injured before entering and had watched Julian grab my wrist afterward.
Marcus claimed he saw me initiate physical contact.
Serena said she “couldn't remember clearly.”
Cowardice again.
Then the police produced photographs.
The dining table.
My blood.
The shattered plate.
Broken phone.
The location of Teresa's chair.
The physical scene did not prove every movement.
But it mattered.
The judge granted a longer temporary protective order against Julian based on the total evidence and separately ordered no direct contact between Teresa and me except through counsel.
Then Dana asked me something outside the courtroom.
“Do you know your dining-room smart speaker account password?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
Police had checked the device.
It had been active.
The speaker did not constantly save ordinary conversations.
But it maintained short diagnostic buffers around voice activations.
Someone had said the wake word during dinner.
Three minutes of audio had been preserved in the account history.
The police requested it.
The first recovered line was Teresa's voice.
“Once Clara signs, Briarwood is safe.”
Then Julian:
“She'll sign.”
Then Marcus:
“And if she doesn't?”
Julian laughed.
“She always folds eventually.”
The assault had not been recorded.
The pressure before it had.
May you like
And the family had just lost another version of their story.
📖 The smart-speaker audio proved the dinner was about saving Teresa's house, but one missing voice on the recording raised a new question about Serena's role. 👇
