Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Ambush
I left the Candler Hotel without looking back. Outside, the autumn rain misted against the pavement of Peachtree Street. My driver, an older man named Arthur whom I had employed since my father passed away, held the umbrella over my head as I slid into the back of my sedan.
"Where to, Mrs. Bennett?" Arthur asked, adjusting the rearview mirror.
"The office, Arthur. Maya should be waiting."
I pulled my phone from my clutch. The screen was already a storm of notifications. Seven missed calls from Penelope Bennett. Four from Grant. Two from a number I recognized as Grant’s personal attorney, Richard Sterling.
I switched the phone to silent and set it face down on the leather seat.
When I arrived at the Bennett Crest headquarters in Midtown twenty minutes later, the glass-and-steel lobby was quiet. It was a Saturday afternoon, but the executive suite on the fourteenth floor was brightly lit.
Maya Rhodes was sitting in my corner office, sipping black coffee. Maya had been my roommate at Emory University fifteen years ago. Today, she was one of the sharpest corporate and matrimonial litigators in the state of Georgia. She wore a tailored plum blazer, her dark braids swept neatly over one shoulder.
Spread across my mahogany desk were four thick manila folders.
"How did she take it?" Maya asked, looking up over her reading glasses.
"She looked like she was going to throw up on her silk dress," I replied, hanging my trench coat on the brass stand by the door. "Grant tried to grab the documents, but he ended up shattering a crystal glass on the floor."
Maya let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "Poetic justice. But that was just the appetizer, Claire. The real fight starts on Monday morning."
I sat in the leather executive chair across from her, pulling the folders toward me. "Is the emergency injunction ready?"
"It’s already drafted," Maya said, tapping the thickest file. "Grant made a fatal mistake when he tried to squeeze you out of the company last year. He had you sign what he claimed were routine refinancing documents for the Peachtree Ridge complex. But because he was rushing to hide the money he was funneling into Sloane’s private account, he didn't realize the lender required your personal signature as the primary guarantor."
"Which means?"
"Which means you don't just own forty-nine percent of Bennett Crest under the original partnership agreement," Maya said, leaning forward. "You hold the debt covenants. Under Georgia commercial code, if the managing partner commits an act of fiduciary fraud—such as using company capital to buy residential real estate under a shell LLC for an illicit third party—the secondary guarantor has the right to freeze all operating accounts."
I opened the folder. Inside were bank wire transfers, real estate deed filings, and LLC registration documents under the name Rosewood Holdings.
Over the past fourteen months, Grant had quietly siphoned three point two million dollars out of Bennett Crest’s commercial development reserve. He had used two million to purchase a luxury penthouse in Buckhead under the Rosewood name, where Sloane was currently living. He had spent another six hundred thousand on luxury vehicles, designer jewelry, and private charter flights.
He thought he had covered his tracks by routing the funds through a series of bogus subcontracting invoices for "pre-construction soil analysis."
Unfortunately for Grant, I was the one who had set up Bennett Crest’s internal auditing system eight years ago. Every invoice over fifty thousand dollars automatically triggered an encrypted mirror backup that went directly to my private server. Grant had never bothered to learn how the accounting software worked; he had always left that "boring administrative work" to his quiet, accommodating wife.
Suddenly, the heavy glass doors of the executive suite rattled.
A keycard beeped with an angry, rapid tone. The door flew open, slamming against the drywall with a shuddering thud.
Grant stood in the doorway.
His navy tie was undone, dangling limply around his unbuttoned collar. His hair was disheveled from the rain, and his breathing was heavy and ragged. Behind him, looking pale and nervous, was Richard Sterling, his corporate lawyer.
"Claire!" Grant roared, storming down the corridor toward my office. "You vindictive, psychopathic bitch!"
Maya didn't even flinch. She reached calmly into her briefcase, pulled out a small digital voice recorder, and pressed the record button, placing it neatly in the center of the desk.
"Step inside, Mr. Bennett," Maya said, her tone icy and formal. "Please, continue. Everything you say is being recorded for our emergency hearing before Judge Harrison on Tuesday morning."
Grant stopped dead at the threshold of my office. He saw Maya. He saw the recorder. Then he saw the open folders on my desk.
"You ruined me," Grant whispered, his hands trembling at his sides. "Do you have any idea what happened back there? Half the wives in that room have husbands on the city council! Julian Vance was there—Marcus’s father! The entire room knows Sloane was sleeping with Marcus! The whole damn city is laughing at me!"
"They aren't just laughing at you, Grant," I said quietly, looking him dead in the eye. "They're realizing who you really are."
Richard Sterling stepped forward, placing a cautious hand on Grant’s shoulder. "Grant, quiet. Not another word." Richard looked at Maya, his expression grim. "Maya, this has gone entirely too far. Airing personal grievances at a private social function is one thing. But we received your notification regarding the operating freeze on Bennett Crest’s accounts. That is an overreach. The payroll run for four hundred construction workers is due on Wednesday."
"Then I suggest your client find a way to replace the three point two million dollars he stole from the commercial reserve," Maya replied smoothly.
Grant’s face went from enraged to completely paralyzed. "What did you say?"
Maya smiled, opening the second folder. "Hello, Rosewood Holdings. Did you really think Claire wouldn't notice a three-million-dollar phantom contractor based out of a postal box in Alpharetta?"
May you like
Grant looked at Richard. Richard closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, the universal sign of a lawyer who just realized his client had committed felony fraud and lied to him about it.
"Grant," Richard muttered under his breath, "tell me you didn't."
