Chapter 8 - The Audit Report
Two weeks later, the formal findings of the corporate financial audit landed on my desk.
The investigation was thorough, clinical, and completely damning. Not only had Sloan used my corporate emergency card for the $42,500 catering deposit, but further digital forensics revealed a long trail of unauthorized charges dating back over three years—spa treatments, boutique hotel stays in New York, designer handbags, and even payments for her luxury car lease.
Total unauthorized withdrawals: nearly $114,000.
Marcus Vance called me on a Tuesday morning to review our options.
“Merritt, we have enough documentation here to press full criminal charges for grand larceny and identity theft. Given the paper trail, the district attorney won't even need to take it to a grand jury; it's an open-and-shut plea deal or trial.”
I looked out my office window at the bustling marine shipping yards below, watching a massive container crane hoist a steel cargo box onto the deck of an oceangoing freighter.
“What happens if we press charges?” I asked.
“Sloan faces up to five years in prison, or a suspended sentence with mandatory restitution, probation, and a felony record. Your parents' names will inevitably get dragged through the public court documents because their accounts were used to funnel some of the secondary transfers.”
I sat in silence for a long moment.
For thirty-four years, I had protected my family from the consequences of their own actions. I had absorbed their financial exploitation, excused their emotional abuse, and taken the blame for everything that went wrong in Sloan's pristine, fragile world.
And what had it cost me?
Six months of rehabilitation, a torn ligament, lost contracts, and a lifetime of feeling like I was worth less than the dirt on my sister's designer shoes.
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“Don't offer a plea deal, Marcus,” I said, my voice steady and resolute. “Let the audit run its full course. Let the court handle the numbers.”
“Understood,” Marcus said quietly. “Consider it done.”
