Chapter 3 - The Audit Unfolds
By Friday morning, the sun was bright and blinding over the gated community.
While Mom was upstairs resting in the master suite’s plush guest room, and Donovan was happily building Lego towers in the sunroom, I sat at the sleek walnut desk in my private office on the second floor.
My laptop screen displayed a live-stream feed from the financial forensics software I had deployed earlier that week.
When you live with someone for six years, you tend to trust them. You don't look too closely when they ask you to sign a 'routine tax authorization form' or when they handle the minor utility transfers. But when you spend years building a multi-million-dollar tech portfolio, you learn how to hire the best forensic investigators money can buy.
The door to my office clicked open.
My personal attorney and chief financial advisor, Marcus Vance—a sharp, silver-haired bulldog of a lawyer who had negotiated my startup’s seed rounds—walked in carrying a thick manila folder.
“Morning, Taylor,” Marcus said, tossing the folder onto my desk. “You look entirely too calm for a woman who just blew up her marriage.”
“Marriage implies partnership, Marcus. What I had was a parasite infestation,” I replied, opening the folder. “Tell me what you found.”
“It’s worse than you thought,” Marcus said, pulling up a digital projection on my office monitor. “Caden didn't just let his mother siphon twelve thousand from Donovan’s fund. Over the last eighteen months, Caden has been systematically transferring corporate dividends from your secondary LLC into a hidden trust account registered under his mother’s maiden name.”
I stared at the screen. The numbers added up to nearly four hundred thousand dollars.
“Four hundred grand,” I murmured. “What did he spend it on?”
“High-risk speculative crypto investments that tanked last winter, luxury car leases for his brother, and a down payment on a secret condominium downtown registered under an unmarried partner clause,” Marcus stated smoothly. “In short, Taylor, your husband was setting up an exit strategy. He planned to bleed your companies dry, file for a contentious divorce under community property laws, and leave you with nothing while he ran off with his mistress.”
A cold anger washed over me, replacing the residual grief with diamond-hard resolve.
“Can we freeze his assets globally?” I asked.
“They were frozen thirty seconds after you deactivated your cards yesterday,” Marcus grinned, adjusting his tie. “His credit cards are maxed, his bank accounts show a negative balance due to overdraft fees, and his luxury car lease company has already been notified that his primary payment source is invalid. By Monday morning, repo men will be picking up his BMW from the driveway across the street.”
May you like
“Good,” I said, standing up and walking to the window. Across the street, the blinds of our old house remained tightly drawn. “Let them see what life looks like without my money.”
---
