Chapter 2 - The Forty-One Percent He Forgot About
Arthur called Phoebe back six times.
No answer.
By the seventh attempt, Flynn had stopped trying to argue about the divorce.
That alone told me the threat was real.
“Call building security,” Fiona said.
Arthur was already doing it.
I stood in the center of the private terminal holding a boarding pass I suddenly had no intention of using.
Five minutes earlier, leaving Charlotte had felt like the only action in my life that belonged entirely to me.
Now someone had accessed my father’s trust archive using my credentials.
Phoebe was inside headquarters.
And the last words she had spoken were:
Someone is inside.
“Who knew she was there?” I asked.
Arthur lowered his phone.
“Me. Fiona. You.”
We all looked at Flynn.
He actually flinched.
“I didn’t know.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if I knew Reed was digging through Northstar tonight, I would have stopped her before she entered the building.”
Fiona’s face turned cold.
“That may be the first honest thing you’ve said.”
Flynn ignored her.
“Call Phoebe’s private number.”
“That was her private number,” Arthur said.
“Then call the server room.”
Arthur stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because trust archive authentication is routed through the legacy server.”
Fiona took one step closer.
“How do you know that?”
“I’m CEO.”
“No,” she said. “The family trust is intentionally separated from corporate administration.”
“It’s separated legally. Not technologically.”
My pulse quickened.
“Dad insisted on separate systems.”
Flynn turned toward me.
“Your father died eight years ago. Systems changed.”
“Without telling the trust beneficiary?”
“I don’t personally approve every server migration.”
Arthur’s expression sharpened.
“You approved the cybersecurity consolidation eighteen months ago.”
Flynn went silent.
I remembered the proposal.
He had described it as operational housekeeping.
Faster authentication.
Lower maintenance cost.
Reduced duplication.
I had signed the consent because Arthur’s predecessor had reviewed the corporate portion.
Nobody told me trust credentials would touch company infrastructure.
“Did the consolidation give corporate IT access to my trust authentication?” I asked.
“No.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Flynn rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Technically, administrators can see authentication traffic.”
“Can they use my credentials?”
“They shouldn’t be able to.”
“Again,” Fiona said, “not what she asked.”
Flynn looked toward the terminal doors.
“I need to go to headquarters.”
I almost laughed.
“You need to go back to your newborn.”
Pain flashed across his face.
Or guilt.
I could no longer tell the difference.
“Evelyn, whatever you think of me, this is bigger.”
“My husband created a child with his CFO while the two of them routed company money through fake consultants. Forgive me if I’m having trouble imagining bigger.”
Flynn lowered his voice.
“You keep saying Selina and I routed the money.”
“Didn’t you?”
He looked at me.
Then said, “Not all of it.”
The words landed strangely.
Not all.
Not denial.
Allocation.
Arthur ended another call.
“Building security is sending someone to executive accounting.”
“I’m going,” I said.
“No,” Flynn replied immediately.
I turned.
“You don’t give me instructions anymore.”
“That wasn’t an instruction.”
“It sounded familiar.”
“It was a warning.”
Fiona stepped beside me.
“We’ll all go.”
Flynn shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
She smiled without warmth.
“You seem confused about how much authority you currently have.”
I handed my boarding pass to the gate agent.
“I’m not leaving.”
That surprised Flynn.
For the briefest second, relief appeared in his face.
I hated that I noticed.
My phone remained switched off.
The divorce announcement was already spreading.
By the time we left the terminal, two reporters had apparently called Vance Global communications.
Neither Flynn nor I knew that yet.
We learned during the drive.
Fiona insisted we take her car.
Arthur sat in front with the driver.
I sat beside Fiona.
Flynn sat across from us in the rear-facing seat of the long executive SUV like a defendant who had accidentally entered the jury room.
Nobody spoke for the first two minutes.
Then Fiona’s phone rang.
She answered.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“No comment on the marriage.”
Another pause.
“No comment on executive status until the board meets.”
She disconnected.
Flynn stared.
“You’re already talking about my status?”
“They asked.”
“Because Evelyn created a public spectacle.”
I turned toward him.
“You were at the birth of your mistress’s child.”
“My son.”
The words came out before he could stop them.
The car went silent.
My son.
Not alleged.
Not complicated.
Not a misunderstanding.
His son.
Six years of marriage reduced to two syllables.
I looked through the rain-streaked window.
Charlotte passed outside.
Traffic lights.
Wet sidewalks.
People leaving offices.
Ordinary lives continuing.
“Did you love her?” I asked.
Flynn looked stunned.
Fiona turned slightly away, giving us the closest thing to privacy possible inside a moving vehicle.
“Evelyn.”
“Did you?”
His face tightened.
“I care about Selina.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
He looked at his hands.
“No.”
The answer hurt more than yes would have.
“You risked our marriage for a woman you didn’t love?”
“It didn’t begin like that.”
“Affairs rarely begin with a project charter, Flynn.”
“I was lonely.”
I almost laughed.
“You were lonely?”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“You just did.”
“No. I’m telling you what I told myself.”
That stopped me.
For the first time, he sounded less like the executive who could turn any moral failure into a strategic misunderstanding.
He sounded like a man hearing his own excuse aloud and disliking it.
“When did it start?”
“Fourteen months ago.”
I closed my eyes.
Our anniversary in Napa had been eleven months earlier.
He had held my hand at dinner.
Bought me a necklace.
Told me he wanted us to make more time for each other.
Three months into his affair.
“Did she know you weren’t leaving me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her you would?”
His silence answered.
I looked at him.
“Of course.”
“Evelyn—”
“No.”
The word was calm.
Final.
“That conversation is over.”
The SUV entered Vance Global’s underground garage seventeen minutes later.
Security personnel were waiting.
The head of corporate security, Marcus Bell, approached before our doors opened.
He had worked for Dad.
That mattered to me.
His expression did not.
“Ms. Vance.”
“Where’s Phoebe?”
“We located Ms. Reed.”
My breath released.
“She’s safe?”
“She’s shaken, but yes.”
“What happened?”
Marcus looked at Flynn.
Then back at me.
“We should discuss it upstairs.”
“Here.”
“Evelyn,” Arthur said quietly, “let him secure the garage.”
I nodded.
We took the private elevator to the twenty-eighth floor.
Nobody spoke.
When the doors opened, two security officers stood outside executive accounting.
A glass panel beside the door had shattered.
Not dramatically.
A small impact pattern near the lock.
Inside, file drawers stood open.
Phoebe sat at the conference table with a cup of water.
She was sixty, with cropped gray hair and glasses she constantly pushed up her nose when irritated.
Now she was holding the cup in both hands.
That scared me.
Phoebe rarely held anything with two hands.
I crossed the room.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Someone came through the archive office.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see his face.”
“His?”
“Height. Build. Voice. Probably male.”
Flynn stepped inside.
Phoebe looked at him.
Everything in her expression changed.
“You.”
Arthur moved closer.
Flynn stopped.
“What?”
“You knew.”
“I knew what?”
“That I found the reserve ledger.”
Flynn’s face emptied.
Phoebe stood.
Fiona closed the door behind us.
“What reserve ledger?” she asked.
Phoebe looked at me.
“That’s why I called.”
She opened her laptop.
The screen was cracked near one corner but functional.
“I found a second accounting structure attached to Northstar.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Northstar itself received about two-point-eight million connected to Selina’s expenses and other questionable reimbursements.”
Flynn exhaled.
As if that were somehow the good news.
Phoebe continued.
“But Northstar was also being used as a pass-through marker.”
“For what?”
“Transactions that never actually landed in Northstar’s operating account.”
I stared.
“I don’t understand.”
“Someone created mirrored entries. Vance Global’s internal reporting shows payments to Northstar. Bank settlement records show portions being redirected elsewhere before final posting.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“Where?”
Phoebe opened a spreadsheet.
“Seven entities.”
Names filled the screen.
Harbor Ridge Logistics.
Meridian Health Solutions.
Ashcroft Advisory.
Three others I did not recognize.
The last one made Fiona grip the table.
HV Legacy Management LLC.
My father’s initials.
Harrison Vance.
“What is that?” I whispered.
Phoebe looked at Flynn.
“Ask him.”
Every face turned.
Flynn shook his head.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“You accessed reports containing it.”
“I access thousands of reports.”
“From a restricted accounting folder?”
His eyes narrowed.
“When?”
Phoebe clicked.
A log appeared.
Flynn Vance.
Five access events.
Three months.
“Those are automated executive reports.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “They aren’t.”
Flynn stepped toward the screen.
Arthur blocked him.
“Stay there.”
Flynn stared at the access logs.
I watched confusion spread across his face.
Real confusion.
I had lived with him for six years.
I knew when he lied.
Not always.
But often enough.
He did not recognize those logs.
“Someone used my credentials,” he said.
Phoebe gave a dry laugh.
“How convenient.”
I remembered the trust notification.
“My credentials too.”
That changed the room.
Phoebe looked at me.
“What?”
“Someone accessed the family trust archive from this building less than an hour ago using my authorization.”
She sat slowly.
“That’s what they wanted.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
She turned the laptop toward us.
“The reserve ledger goes back nine years.”
“Nine?” Fiona asked.
Flynn had only been CEO six.
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
“Before Flynn ran the company.”
“Yes.”
“Before Selina became CFO.”
“Also yes.”
For the first time, the affair and the fraud separated.
Not entirely.
But enough.
Someone had been moving money through a hidden structure before either Flynn or Selina had the authority to create it.
“How much?” Arthur asked.
Phoebe hesitated.
That frightened me more than any number.
“How much?”
“Thirty-seven million dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
Not Flynn.
Not Fiona.
Not Arthur.
Not me.
Thirty-seven million.
Across nine years.
My father had still been alive when it began.
“What was the money used for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Where did it go?”
“Somewhere outside the corporate structure.”
She clicked another file.
“This is what I found immediately before someone entered the archive room.”
A scanned authorization appeared.
My father’s name sat at the bottom.
Harrison Vance.
I stopped breathing.
It authorized the first transfer into HV Legacy Management.
Nine years earlier.
Arthur stared at it.
“That’s Harrison’s signature.”
Fiona whispered, “Yes.”
Flynn looked at me.
I could barely hear him.
“Evelyn.”
I moved closer to the screen.
My father’s signature.
The slant.
The long V.
The small break he always left between first and last name.
Everything looked right.
Except one thing.
Dad had taught me to recognize every document he signed after a forged prescription contract nearly cost the company millions when I was sixteen.
He always wrote the date personally.
Always.
The authorization date on the page was typed.
There was no handwritten date.
I leaned closer.
“Zoom in.”
Phoebe did.
Near the signature line was a tiny gray mark.
Almost invisible.
Arthur squinted.
“What is that?”
Phoebe enlarged it again.
A document-production code appeared beneath the scan.
I knew that code.
Everyone in my family did.
Vance Global had changed legal document systems after Dad’s death.
The code belonged to the newer system.
A system created two years after the date printed on the authorization.
“That document didn’t exist nine years ago,” I said.
Phoebe looked at me.
“No.”
Fiona’s face hardened.
“Then Harrison never signed it.”
Before anyone could respond, the conference-room lights went dark.
The laptop screen remained glowing between us.
Then the electronic lock clicked.
Once.
Twice.
Arthur tried the door.
It would not open.
Marcus’s voice suddenly came through the speaker in the ceiling.
“Everybody stay where you are.”
A crash sounded somewhere beyond the wall.
May you like
Then Marcus shouted a name none of us expected.
“Selina!”
