Chapter 4 - The Forged Signature
At 4:36 PM, my phone rang again. It was Rebecca, and the tone in her voice told me that the ground beneath our feet was about to give way entirely. The affair, the luxury trips, and the stolen identity were merely smoke; the fire burning beneath Reed Meridian Capital was far more destructive than I could have imagined.
"Alexandra, you need to sit down," Rebecca said, her voice taut with urgency. "The forensic team just decrypted the master operational expense approvals for the past four quarters. Every single one of those luxury charters, resort stays, and high-end jewelry purchases wasn't just billed to the corporate account—they required dual-level executive sign-off due to SEC compliance rules for mid-market private equity firms."
My breath hitched. "What are you saying, Rebecca?"
"I’m saying that several of those fraudulent expense reports carried mandatory supervisory approval signatures from Mercer Meridian Holdings, the parent entity," she explained, the gravity of her words hanging heavily in the air. "And every single one of those approvals appears to bear your legal signature. Someone authorized these expenditures using your power-of-attorney corporate proxy."
A sickening wave of nausea washed over me. I had never signed a single one of those documents. Years ago, when Julian was first establishing the firm, he had persuaded me to grant him limited administrative proxy rights for routine banking housekeeping while he traveled. He had assured me it was just a technicality to streamline paperwork. He hadn't just been using my name to book flights for his mistress; he had been using my legal proxy to embezzle institutional investor capital, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into fraudulent travel shell companies controlled by Lana Bishop, and framing my signature as the authorizing authority.
If the SEC or federal regulators audited Reed Meridian, the trail of white-collar fraud wouldn't lead to Julian Reed. It would lead directly to me.
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"He set me up," I whispered, the horrifying reality clicking into place with crystal clarity. I wasn't just the cheated wife anymore; I was the designated fall guy. If the firm collapsed under a federal investigation, Julian had built a bulletproof paper trail making it look like his dutiful wife had embezzled millions through unauthorized travel perks.
"Not on my watch," Rebecca said fiercely. "We have the digital metadata, the IP logs showing Julian’s office terminal uploaded the proxy approvals, and the sworn affidavits from the real investors. We are bypassing civil court entirely. I’m preparing an emergency injunction and notifying the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, along with the Manhattan District Attorney's white-collar crime bureau. We are going to crash his grand gala."
