Chapter 3 - The Ghost Company
The next morning, I woke up with a clarity I hadn't felt in over a year.
I didn't reach for the pills on my nightstand. Instead, I swept them into a biohazard bag my father had provided. Every piece of evidence was being meticulously cataloged.
I drove to the Hayes Corporation headquarters. The security guard, who had looked at me with pity just last week, straightened up as I walked through the glass doors. I was wearing my power suit—the crimson one I hadn't touched since the "episodes" began.
"Good morning, Ms. Hayes," he stammered.
"Good morning, Marcus. Lock down the executive elevator. Only my keycard works today."
I walked into my corner office, bypassing the temporary desk Daniel had set up for himself. My father's forensic accounting team was already there, working quietly on laptops. Leading them was Julian, a sharp-eyed investigator who had helped my dad take down Wall Street embezzlers.
"What did you find?" I asked, leaning over the glass table.
Julian tapped a few keys, bringing up a complex web of transactions. "Daniel and Vanessa thought they were being clever. During the months you were heavily medicated, Daniel had you sign stacks of routine paperwork. You thought you were approving vendor contracts."
"What did I actually sign?" I asked, my stomach knotting.
"Powers of attorney," Julian replied grimly. "And transfer deeds for three of your major real estate holdings in Manhattan. They didn't go to Daniel. They went to a shell company in the Cayman Islands called 'Vanguard Holdings'."
I stared at the screen. "Vanessa."
"Exactly. Vanguard Holdings is owned by a trust, which is managed by Veronika Vance. By the end of this week, they were planning to liquidate those buildings for pennies on the dollar, funnel the cash into untraceable crypto wallets, and vanish."
The club incident last night wasn't just a celebration. The $998,000 charge was meant to trigger an automatic credit line extension linked to Vanguard. By changing the PINs and freezing the cards, I had accidentally severed the digital bridge they needed to initiate the massive transfer.
May you like
I looked out the window at the city skyline. Half of those buildings were built by my grandfather. Daniel was going to sell them from under me while I sat in a psychiatric ward.
"Julian," I said, my voice cold as ice. "I don't just want my buildings back. I want to ruin them."
