Chapter 2 - The Audit of a Lifetime
The silence on the lawn stretched so tight it felt like a violin string pulled past its breaking point. Franklin picked up his beer bottle again, taking a slow sip to mask a flicker of genuine annoyance that had finally pierced his arrogant facade.
“Well?” Franklin barked, dropping the bottle back onto the wood with a dull thud. “Open it yourself, or take it away. I don’t have time for games.”
“You might want to open it yourself, Dad,” Maris said, her tone smooth and devoid of emotion. “After all, your signature is required on page four. Though, technically, it’s a bit late for objections.”
Colton shifted uncomfortably in his seat, finally sensing that something was fundamentally wrong. “Dad, just look at the damn thing before she ruins the whole afternoon.”
Franklin scoffed, tearing open the flap of the black envelope with thick, impatient fingers. He pulled out a sheaf of heavy legal documents bound by a crisp blue backing strip. His eyes scanned the header, moving lazily across the corporate letterhead, before freezing dead in their tracks.
The color drained from Franklin’s face with alarming speed, sweeping away his ruddy, sun-baked complexion until he looked like a ghost under daylight lamps.
“What... what is this?” Franklin muttered, his voice losing its booming confidence, replaced by a thin, ragged edge of panic.
“Read it out loud,” Maris suggested quietly, stepping back slightly so she could watch the exact moment his world unraveled. “Or would you prefer I summarize the bullet points for the family?”
Franklin’s hands began to shake slightly—just enough to make the heavy legal paper rustle loudly against the wooden table. His eyes raced down the page, darting past terms like Foreclosure Notice, Asset Liquidation, Principal Default, and Subordinate Lien Transfer.
“This... this has to be a mistake,” Franklin choked out, finally looking up, his eyes wide and bloodshot. He slammed his palm against the table, rattling the plates and silverware. “Camden Manufacturing has been in our family for thirty years! No bank can just seize my assets! I have lines of credit! I have—!”
“You had lines of credit,” Maris corrected, her voice cutting through his panic like a scalpel. “Past tense, Dad. Let me help you with the vocabulary since corporate finance was never your strong suit.”
She stepped closer to the table, resting her palms on the polished wood, leaning down just enough to lock eyes with him.
“For the past five years, while you were busy bragging about Colton’s nonexistent business ventures and funding Derek’s endless string of failed real estate flips, Camden Manufacturing was bleeding dry,” Maris explained calmly, turning to address the entire horrified audience of relatives. “Dad’s management style hasn't changed since 1995. He lived on debt, rolled over bad loans, and used company accounts as his personal piggy bank to buy luxury trucks and vacations.”
Derek pushed his chair back violently, standing up so fast his chair screeched across the concrete patio. “What are you talking about, you lunatic? The company is doing fine! Dad just bought a new boat last month!”
“With a high-interest commercial bridge loan that defaulted on Friday afternoon,” Maris replied smoothly, not even blinking as she looked at her brother. “A loan that was secured against this exact property, this house, and every single commercial asset Franklin Camden owns.”
She turned back to her trembling father.
“Three years ago, when the company hit its first major liquidity crisis, the primary commercial lender quietly put the debt on the chopping block. You were too proud to notice the warning notices, Dad. You assumed the bank would keep rolling over your paper because you’re Franklin Camden.”
She reached into her suit jacket, pulled out a second, smaller document, and laid it directly over the first one.
“So, I bought the debt.”
The backyard fell into a depth of silence so profound it felt like the air had been sucked out of the atmosphere.
Franklin stared up at her, his mouth opening, closing, and opening again like a stranded fish. “You... you bought it? With what money? You were barely paying rent in a studio apartment five years ago!”
“I built software, Dad,” Maris said softly, a ghost of a smile touching the corners of her lips. “Scalable, enterprise-grade architecture. While you were laughing at my notebooks when I was ten, and telling me to find a husband when I was twenty, I was building algorithms that Fortune 500 companies pay millions of dollars to license. By the time your business started sinking under its own weight, my holding company was already in position.”
May you like
She tapped the black envelope with her manicured fingernail.
“Happy Father’s Day. You are officially looking at your primary creditor, your landlord, and the sole majority shareholder of everything you ever built.”
