Chapter 4 - The Audit and the Aftermath
By the time Sabina was discharged from the hospital forty-eight hours later, I didn't take her back to the Rye mansion right away. Instead, I drove her to my private penthouse overlooking the Hudson River—a property I had acquired long before I met Thatcher, one that Beatrix didn't even know existed.
The penthouse was a sanctuary of glass, warm wood, and quiet sunlight. I tucked Sabina into her plush bed, kissed her forehead, and left her in the capable, loving hands of Maria, her long-time nanny whom Beatrix had tried to fire two months ago for 'not speaking proper English.'
Downstairs in the penthouse study, Eleanor Vance and a team of three forensic accountants were waiting for me. Spread across the massive glass conference table were dozens of financial binders, corporate bank statements, and tax returns.
"We ran the full forensic audit on all joint accounts and corporate subsidiaries attached to Thatcher and his family business, Ashford Global Solutions," Eleanor said, handing me a high-density summary report. "Vivian, what we found goes far beyond mere laziness and lavish spending."
I sat down at the head of the table, sipping black coffee. "Show me."
The lead accountant, a sharp woman named Sarah, tapped a red section on a spreadsheet. "For the past three years, Thatcher has been operating as the executive manager of your residential property holding company, Sterling Estates LLC. You gave him signing authority to cover household maintenance, staff payroll, and estate renovations, correct?"
"Yes," I replied. "I wanted him to feel like he had a role in managing our domestic life."
"Well, he managed it straight into his own mother’s pocket," Sarah said grimly. "Over thirty-six months, Thatcher routed over four point two million dollars from Sterling Estates LLC into shell entities owned by Beatrix Ashford."
I set my coffee cup down. The ceramic clinked sharply against the glass. "Four point two million?"
"He fabricated invoice receipts for structural repairs, groundskeeping, high-end art insurance, and historical preservation that never happened," Eleanor explained. "Beatrix used those funds to pay off her personal gambling debts at Monte Carlo, fund her private wardrobe accounts in Paris, and keep her failing social club memberships active."
"Is that all?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
"No," Sarah said, flipping a page. "Six months ago, Thatcher forged your electronic signature on a secondary corporate guarantee line. He pledged a fifteen percent equity stake in one of your commercial real estate buildings as collateral for a two-million-dollar loan to keep his uncle’s firm, Ashford Global, from going into corporate receivership."
A cold, lethal silence settled over the room.
Thatcher hadn't just been a smug, ungrateful husband who prioritized his mother's vanity over his daughter’s health. He was a thief. He had committed grand larceny, forgery, and embezzlement against my company while sitting across from me at the breakfast table every morning, acting like he was doing me a favor by letting me wear his family’s name.
"Does he have any legal defense?" I asked Eleanor.
"None," Eleanor said flatly. "The electronic signatures were traced directly to an IP address located in his private office at the mansion, timestamped while you were on a business trip in London. The paper trail is ironclad. We can file criminal charges with the Manhattan District Attorney's white-collar crime unit immediately."
"Hold off on the criminal charges for forty-eight hours," I said, leaning back in my chair.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because right now, Thatcher and Beatrix still think this is just a marital spat," I replied, a slow, cold smile spreading across my lips. "They think I'm just an angry wife who will eventually cool off and come back to the negotiating table. I want them to try to fight back first. I want them to execute whatever desperate little plan Beatrix is currently hatching. And then I want to collapse their entire world on top of them at once."
At that moment, my laptop screen chimed with an incoming email notification.
It was an emergency press inquiry from The New York Daily Chronicle, a prominent society tabloid. Attached was a draft article set to publish the following morning.
The headline read: "TYCOON WIFE ABANDONS SICK DAUGHTER AND EVICIS HUSBAND IN DRAMATIC MIDNIGHT HYSTERIA AT RYE ESTATE."
The article, sourced directly from an "anonymous close family member"—obviously Beatrix—painted me as an unstable, cold-hearted corporate mogul who had thrown a violent tantrum during a charity dinner, kicked her grieving husband out onto the street, and used her vast wealth to deny a father access to his sick child.
I read through the glowing descriptions of Thatcher as a "devoted, heartbroken father" and Beatrix as a "dignified matriarch caught in the crossfire of corporate greed."
Eleanor looked over my shoulder at the screen, her jaw tightening. "They’re trying to destroy your public reputation to force a massive settlement out of you before the divorce hits the courts."
"Let them publish it," I said smoothly.
May you like
Eleanor blinked. "Vivian, if that article hits the press tomorrow morning, your firm's board of directors will panic, and Sterling Capital's stock could take a temporary hit."
"Let them publish every single word," I repeated, closing the laptop with a soft click. "Because tomorrow morning, I am hosting a live press conference in the lobby of Sterling Capital headquarters. And I’m going to show the world what the Ashfords really are."
