Chapter 3 - The Actuarial Audit
The following morning, Julian left early for Vance Enterprises’ headquarters. He was preparing for the crowning achievement of his career: the public listing (IPO) of Vance Logistics, a company built almost entirely on the stolen infrastructure of my father’s former enterprise.
The moment his Mercedes pulled out of the driveway, I took a sleek black laptop sent via private courier from Arthur Sterling.
Before Julian forced me to sign away my career, I had earned my Master's in Actuarial Science from Columbia University. I wasn't just a grieving mother; I was a master of risk probability, financial modeling, and forensic auditing. Julian had treated me like a helpless trophy wife for three years, completely forgetting that before I was his bride, I was the head analyst who reviewed his family's books.
I plugged Arthur’s encrypted flash drive into the laptop. The screen flashed alive with thousands of pages of internal Vance Group financial ledgers.
"Let's see what you've been hiding, Ximena," I muttered to myself.
For six straight hours, I ran mathematical regression models across Vance Logistics' quarterly filings. What I found was a goldmine of systemic criminality.
To keep Vance Group looking insanely profitable to Wall Street investors, Julian and his financial controller, Ximena, had been running a massive ponzi-style ledger scheme. They were underfunding safety protocols, faking shipping manifests, and illegally siphoning corporate liquid capital into off-shore accounts in the Cayman Islands—accounts registered under Victoria Hayes’s shell companies.
Worse, I found the specific line item for Hazel’s medical funding.
On the exact day Ximena marked Hazel’s emergency life-saving cardiac medicine as REJECTED: Exceeds quarterly dependent allowance ($45,000), Julian had approved a $180,000 wires transfer labeled "Consulting Fees" to a luxury yacht charter company in Saint-Tropez for Victoria’s birthday party.
My hands trembled over the keyboard, not from sorrow, but from a cold, absolute fury that settled deep within my bones.
They didn't reject Hazel's medicine because the company couldn't afford it. They rejected it because Julian wanted to buy emeralds and yacht rentals for his mistress.
I saved the forensic audit report, encrypted it into three separate backup files, and sent them directly to Arthur Sterling, the SEC enforcement division, and the Chief Forensic Prosecutor of New York.
Then my phone buzzed. It was Arthur.
"Genevieve, the trap is fully loaded," Arthur reported. "Julian’s pre-IPO investor gala is tomorrow night at the Plaza Hotel. Every major tech billionaire, Wall Street fund manager, and news outlet will be there. He plans to announce his engagement to Victoria Hayes after serving you with divorce papers on Monday."
"He wants to throw me away like trash after using my father’s legacy to enrich himself," I said softly.
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"What are your instructions?" Arthur asked.
I looked up at the wall clock. "Prepare my dress, Arthur. Make sure it's black. I’m attending the gala."
