Chapter 6 - The Midnight Audit
The confrontation in the office left my mother visibly shaken, but she was a woman who had built her entire existence around control, appearances, and social status. She wasn't going to surrender easily.
"You're bluffing," Denise hissed, stepping closer to me, her expensive perfume choking the small office. "You don't have the money to hire a corporate lawyer to fight Vance or us. By the time any prosecutor looks at those ledgers, the foreclosure will be complete and Cedar Ridge will be gone."
"Then I guess we'll both find out how fast a prosecutor moves when financial fraud involves municipal development funds," a deep, unexpected voice spoke from the hallway.
We all turned around.
Standing in the doorway was Lucas Miller—my estranged cousin, and the son of my father’s late older brother. Lucas was thirty-two, a sharp, reclusive forensic accountant who had cut ties with my parents three years ago after accusing my father of skimming money from the family estate. He was wearing a damp leather jacket, his dark hair dusted with melting snow.
"Lucas?" Evelyn gasped, standing up from her desk. "What are you doing here?"
"I got your text, Grandma," Lucas said, pulling off his gloves and walking into the room. He didn't even acknowledge my mother, stepping right past her as if she were invisible. "I came as fast as I could from Mexico City."
Denise sneered. "Great. The family black sheep has arrived to join the circus."
"At least I'm not the family criminal, Aunt Denise," Lucas replied smoothly, unzipping his laptop bag and laying a heavy black binder on the desk. "I've been tracking the lodge's public tax filings for six months. I knew my uncle was sinking this place, but I didn't realize he was stupid enough to leave a paper trail this obvious."
My mother’s hands trembled against her leather gloves. "You have no right to look at company books!"
"Actually, as a five-percent trust beneficiary, I have every legal right to conduct a minority shareholder audit," Lucas said, pulling up a series of complex spreadsheets on his laptop screen. "And based on my preliminary analysis of the vendor accounts Natalie just found... Grant hasn't just been skimming. He's been committing wire fraud across state lines."
Denise took a step back, her face turning pale as a sheet. "Lucas..."
"Grant diverted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of lodge maintenance funds to a personal account in the Cayman Islands last August," Lucas continued, his eyes cold as ice as he looked at my mother. "If Vanguard forecloses on this lodge, the bank will do a full asset discovery. They will find those transfers, Denise. And when they do, Grant won't just lose his inheritance—he'll be doing five to ten years in a federal penitentiary."
The silence in the room was absolute.
My mother looked between Lucas, Evelyn, and me. Her carefully constructed facade was shattering into a million pieces. She had spent years trying to secure a place in high society for Grant, pushing him into elite social circles, protecting him from every consequence—and in her desperate bid to save him from his own debts, she had walked him straight into a criminal trap.
"What... what do you want?" Denise whispered, her voice finally breaking.
Evelyn stepped forward, leaning her hands on the mahogany desk, her presence towering over her daughter.
"Here is what is going to happen, Denise," Evelyn declared in a voice of pure iron. "You and Richard are going to resign from the Board of Directors of Cedar Ridge LLC effective immediately. You will surrender all voting rights to Natalie and Lucas."
"No!" Denise cried out.
"Yes!" Evelyn shouted back. "And Grant will transfer every single peso he stole back into the lodge's operating account by Monday morning. If he does that, we won't press criminal charges."
"He doesn't have the money left!" Denise wept, tears finally ruining her pristine makeup. "He spent it on investments that failed!"
"Then you and Richard will sell your primary residence in Mexico City to cover his debt," I interjected coldly. "You have forty-eight hours to decide. Give us the company, or watch your golden son go to prison."
My mother stared at me with pure venom, but for the first time in my life, I saw the defeat in her eyes. She knew she had lost.
Without another word, she turned around, her heels clicking loudly against the hardwood floor, and fled down the hallway into the snowy night.
Lucas let out a long breath, adjusting his glasses. "Well. That was intense."
I looked at my cousin, feeling a wave of relief wash over me. "Thank you, Lucas. How did you get here so fast?"
Lucas smiled gently, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Grandma called me weeks ago, Natalie. She told me she had a bad feeling about this Christmas Eve. She told me to be ready."
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I looked at Evelyn, who offered me a tired, triumphant smile.
"Now," Lucas said, turning back to his laptop screen, his expression becoming serious again. "We solved the internal threat. But we still have a massive problem. We have six days to pay Marcus Vance two hundred thousand dollars, or he takes the lodge anyway."
