Chapter 3 - The Freeze
The financial earthquake hit at 1:45 PM on Monday.
I was sitting in a corner booth at a quiet downtown café, sipping black coffee and reviewing the latest IRS corporate compliance guidelines, when my phone started vibrating incessantly.
It wasn’t just Preston this time. It was Dolores Wade. It was Preston’s business partners. It was even a frantic text from one of the junior project managers at Wade Development.
*Junior PM: Simone, what is happening? All company accounts have been frozen by court order. Payroll bounced! The banks are locking us out of the site!*
I didn’t reply. I simply archived the notification.
Ten minutes later, the glass door of the café chimed. A tall silhouette strode inside, his face flushed with a mixture of rage and sheer panic.
Preston Wade.
He wasn’t wearing his expensive charcoal suit today. He was wearing a rumpled grey sweater, his hair unstyled, looking like a man who had just realized his private jet was flying without wings. His eyes scanned the café, locking onto me instantly.
He marched over, his heavy footsteps vibrating through the wooden floorboards, and pulled out the chair opposite me without asking.
“What did you do?” he hissed, leaning across the small marble table. His voice was trembling, barely controlled. “What the hell did you do, Simone?”
I took a slow sip of my coffee, setting the ceramic cup down with a soft *clack*. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away.
“Good afternoon, Preston,” I said mildly. “You look stressed.”
“Stressed?” He slammed his palm against the table, causing the salt shaker to rattle. Several patrons at nearby tables turned to look. Preston immediately lowered his voice, though his face contorted into an ugly snarl. “You froze every corporate account we have! Payroll is locked! The bank is auditing our entire ledger! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Gerald Sinclair is ready to pull every dime of funding!”
“Well,” I said, tilting my head slightly. “Good thing he’s your future father-in-law, right? Surely he can bail you out of a little cash flow hiccup.”
Preston’s breath hitched. His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about—?”
“About Meridian Holding Group?” I supplied smoothly, leaning back in my seat and crossing my legs. “About the forged quitclaim deed on Hawthorne Lane? About the four million in commingled funds used to artificially inflate the Eastside project?”
The color drained entirely from Preston’s face. He looked at me not with anger anymore, but with a terrifying, creeping horror. The realization was dawning on him that the quiet woman who had packed his lunches and balanced his tax returns wasn’t just an ex-fiancée—she was a forensic auditor who had just dismantled his entire empire in less than forty-eight hours.
“Simone,” he whispered, his voice cracking, the arrogance completely stripped away. “We can talk about this. We can fix this. You’re upset about the party... I was drunk, I was stressed, Bri didn’t mean—it was a mistake—”
“A mistake is forgetting to salt the pasta, Preston,” I interrupted, my voice dropping an octave, cold enough to freeze boiling water. “Falsifying corporate ledgers, committing wire fraud, and stealing my home equity? Those are federal crimes.”
“You’re going to ruin me,” he breathed, staring at me as if looking at a ghost.
May you like
“No, Preston,” I said, standing up and slipping my trench coat over my shoulders. I dropped a five-dollar bill onto the table to cover my coffee. “You ruined yourself. I’m just the one presenting the bill.”
***
