Chapter 4 - The Audit Threat
I immediately pulled Richard into a quiet hallway away from the noise of the music. I handed him my phone without a word.
Richard read Ethan’s text message twice. His jaw hardened, but he didn't look panicked. Instead, his eyes narrowed with profound disgust.
"Offshore accounts?" I whispered nervously, looking over my shoulder to make sure no guests had followed us. "Rich, what is he talking about? Do we have offshore accounts?"
"No, Evelyn, of course not," Richard said firmly. "Everything I own is completely legal, taxed, and audited annually. But Ethan worked at Miller & Sterling Accounting. He assisted on our corporate restructuring last fall. He must have pulled confidential files from their secure server before he left the office yesterday."
"Can he fabricate something? Can he hurt you?"
"Fabricate? Maybe," Richard said grimly. "An IRS audit, even a baseless one, can freeze a company’s credit lines for six months. It could halt our new manufacturing plant expansion. He’s trying to blackmail us into paying him off for the money he lost on his condo deposit and his ruined reputation."
"We can't let him do this to us," I said, anger rising in my chest once again. "He humiliated Carol, and now he’s threatening our livelihood?"
"He’s desperate," Richard said calmly, handing my phone back. "Desperate people make sloppy mistakes. Don't mention this to Carol tonight. Let her enjoy her evening. Tomorrow morning, I’ll call my legal team."
When the party finally ended at midnight, we helped Carol unpack her wedding gifts in the hotel suite. Among the stack of envelopes containing checks and well-wishes from family friends, Carol found a sleek, silver box tucked at the bottom of the gift table. There was no card attached.
"Who is this from?" Carol asked, lifting the heavy silver lid.
Inside the box lay a sleek, expensive tablet computer along with a small USB drive resting on top of a velvet cushion.
Carol plugged the USB drive into her phone out of curiosity. A single folder appeared on her screen titled: PROPERTY_ASSETS_CAROL.
She tapped on it. Dozens of real estate documents, bank statements, and personal correspondence flooded her screen.
It wasn't a wedding gift. It was Ethan’s personal backup folder.
Ethan had used Carol’s personal cloud account months ago to back up his private files while setting up her home office laptop, forgetting that her cloud account synced across all her devices. He had unknowingly left a digital trail of every single file he had ever downloaded from his employer's server—including his private messages with a third party.
Carol scrolled through the files, her eyes widening in horror as she realized what she was looking at.
"Mom... Dad... come look at this," Carol said, her voice shaking slightly.
Richard and I leaned over her shoulder.
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Among the documents was an executed agreement between Ethan and a high-profile real estate developer—a direct competitor of Richard’s firm. Ethan hadn't just planned to marry Carol for a quick year to steal her condo money. He was actively selling Richard’s confidential business secrets, client lists, and patent designs to our family's biggest corporate rival.
The wedding wasn't just a sham. It was the cover story for an elaborate corporate espionage scheme designed to destroy my husband's life's work.
