Chapter 7 - The Unraveling of Cynthia
“You... you lied to me,” Ivan whispered. His voice had lost its resonance; it sounded like dry paper scraping against concrete. “You set me up from the beginning.”
“I didn't set you up, Ivan,” I answered coldly. “I gave you five million dollars to build an honest business. I gave you a thirty percent equity earn-out if you maintained fiscal solvency and corporate integrity. You didn't build a business. You built a monument to your own vanity, funded by embezzlement.”
At that moment, the boardroom doors flew open again.
Cynthia Sterling burst through, her silk scarf askew, her face mottled with red blotches beneath her expensive foundation. Two building security guards trailed behind her, looking apologetically at Jonathan Miller.
“Ivan!” she shrieked, ignoring the board entirely. “The bank has frozen my household account! I went to pay the maintenance on the Park Avenue apartment and the card was declined! They told me the account was terminated by a court order! What is this mouse doing in your chair?”
She pointed a shaking, manicured finger at me, her diamonds catching the morning light.
“You ungrateful, plain little creature!” Cynthia spat, marching toward the table. “Ivan pulled you out of obscurity! You had nothing! You were a pathetic orphan living in a drafty brownstone, and we gave you a name! We gave you standing! You wouldn't even know how to order a decent vintage if my son hadn't taught you how to act like a civilized woman!”
Jonathan Miller stood up slowly, picking up a thin blue folder from the stack before him.
“Mrs. Sterling,” Miller said, his voice dropping into that rhythmic, devastating cadence of an experienced litigator delivering an execution. “Since you have so kindly joined us, we can expedite the matter of the Vanguard Foundation for the Arts.”
Cynthia froze. The color drained from her cheeks in a single, terrifying wave.
“For the past seven years,” Miller continued, turning a page, “you have served as the salaried director of Vanguard’s charitable trust, drawing three hundred and twenty thousand dollars annually. Our forensic team completed their audit of your designated accounts at 4:00 AM today.”
He looked up over his spectacles.
“Of the four million dollars allocated to that foundation for inner-city youth arts programs, exactly forty-eight thousand dollars was distributed to legitimate non-profits. The remaining three million nine hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars was routed through a shell company registered in Delaware under your maiden name, used to pay your personal accounts at Bergdorf Goodman, your plastic surgeon in Bern, and the lease on your Mercedes.”
“That’s—that’s an administrative allowance!” Cynthia stammered, her voice dropping into a horrified whimper. She looked at Ivan, but Ivan was staring blankly at the Geneva trust document, entirely unable to process his own ruin. “Ivan authorized those expenses! He’s the CEO!”
“Ivan was an employee,” Marcus Vance interrupted, his voice dripping with disgust. “And an employee cannot authorize the theft of trust assets. Mrs. Sterling, the Internal Revenue Service was notified of your Delaware entity ninety minutes ago. I believe their criminal investigation division has already dispatched agents to your apartment.”
Cynthia sank into the nearest chair, the air leaving her lungs in a long, rattling gasp. The pearl choker at her throat looked suddenly like a noose.
May you like
She looked at me—truly looked at me—for the first time in ten years. She didn't see the shy, obliging girl who arranged hydrangeas to her specifications. She saw the woman who held the deed to every stitch of clothing on her back, and who was about to take it all away.
***
