During a business dinner, Brandi snatched my fiancé’s phone, charged ten thousand dollars to his card for a new handbag, then stuck her tongue out at me. “Cade is so rich, she won’t mind a little splurge, right? Alex and I don’t have secrets. His money is my money.” Everyone at the table waited for me to either explode or graciously let it slide. Instead, I pulled a voice recorder and a laptop from my briefcase and adjusted my gold-rimmed glasses. “The amount in question is ten thousand dollars, which meets the threshold for criminal investigation. Since there are no secrets between you, would this be classified as corporate embezzlement, or an illicit transfer of assets within the context of a sugar-daddy relationship?” “Oh, and that last part, about ‘his money is my money’? I have it on tape. According to his company’s bylaws and our prenuptial agreement, I am now officially initiating an asset freeze on Alex Vance.” “Enjoy your new bag, Miss Brandi. The food in prison is free.” Alex’s face went pale. “Cade, it was just a joke. Are you really going to ruin me over this?” I hit the Enter key. “I’m sorry. In my ledger, there are no jokes. Only bad debts.” 1 My phone vibrated. A text from my bank flashed on the screen: Charge of $10,000.00 processed. I set down my fork and looked at Alex. He wasn’t looking at me. He was busy peeling a shrimp for Brandi, the girl sitting beside him. Brandi was holding Alex’s phone. The screen was still lit up, displaying the payment confirmation page from a luxury brand’s website. She twirled the phone in her fingers and flashed it at me. “Cade, I’ve had my eye on this bag forever. Alex said you’re always so frugal you don’t know the first thing about fashion. He thought I should help him spend a little, you know, to keep up appearances.” There were seven or eight people at the table, all of them Alex’s “buddies” and business partners. They paused, their eyes darting between me, Alex, and Brandi. Someone let out a short, muffled laugh. Alex placed the peeled shrimp in Brandi’s bowl before finally glancing at me. “Cade, Brandi’s just a kid. Don’t take it so seriously. It’s just a bag. We can afford it.” I said nothing. I unzipped my briefcase. I took out a digital voice recorder and pressed the record button. A small red light blinked on. I took out my ultra-slim laptop, opened the lid, and typed in my password. My movements were fluid, practiced. The smile on Brandi’s face faltered. She leaned closer to Alex, practically draping herself over his arm. “Alex, look at your fiancée. Who brings a laptop to dinner? Is she going to start running numbers? What a buzzkill.” Alex frowned and slammed his chopsticks on the table. “Cade, are you on the clock? This is a private dinner. Put that junk away.” I ignored him. My fingers flew across the keyboard. I opened a new spreadsheet and named the file: Alex Vance - Large-Scale Irregular Expenditure Memo. I pushed my gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose and looked at Brandi. “A moment ago, you said that you and Alex have no secrets, that his money is your money. Is that correct?” Brandi tilted her chin up. “That’s right! Alex and I grew up together. We have a bond. Someone like you, who only knows how to read financial statements, would never understand.” I nodded. “Excellent.” I turned to Alex. “And you agree with that statement?” He waved his hand dismissively. “Brandi is like a little sister to me. What’s the big deal if she spends a little of my money? You’re my fiancée, can’t you be a little more generous? Don’t be so petty. It’s a bad look.” I hit the Enter key. The cursor blinked on the screen. I began to speak, my voice steady and clear, loud enough for the recorder to pick up every word. “According to federal law, any employee of a corporation or enterprise who uses their position to illicitly appropriate company assets for personal use, where the amount is substantial, shall be subject to a prison term of up to five years.” “Alex’s credit card is linked to the corporate account.” “Brandi is not an employee of the company, yet she used ten thousand dollars of corporate funds for a personal expense.” I looked at Alex. “You are the CEO. I am the Chief Risk Officer. You authorized a non-employee to misappropriate company funds for personal luxury consumption.” I paused. “If this isn’t classified as embezzlement, then it must be an illicit transfer of assets within the context of an extramarital affair.” “Alex, your company is in the critical phase of its pre-IPO audit. A ten-thousand-dollar expense without a valid business receipt will cause the auditors to immediately fail your financial compliance review.” The table fell into a dead silence. The man who had laughed earlier froze with his wine glass halfway to his lips. Alex’s face turned a blotchy, furious red. He shot to his feet, the chair screeching against the floor. “Cade! Are you insane? This is between me and Brandi! Who are you to make it a federal case? Embezzlement? Prison? Are you that desperate for attention that you can’t stand to see me be nice to anyone else?” Brandi’s eyes instantly welled up. Tears streamed down her face. “Cade, why are you humiliating me like this? I just bought a bag… If you’re upset that Alex is nice to me, take it out on me. Don’t ruin him.” Sobbing, she buried her face in Alex’s chest. He patted her back protectively and pointed a finger at me. “Cade, you apologize to Brandi right now! Or this wedding is off!” I saved the document. Closed the laptop. Turned off the recorder and placed it back in my briefcase. I stood up. “Whether we get married is not your decision. But whether the company’s books are balanced, that is mine.” “If that ten thousand dollars is not returned to the corporate account within three days, I will file a report directly with the financial crimes division.” “Furthermore,” I said, looking at Brandi, “your admission that you and Alex ‘have no secrets’ has been recorded.” “According to the company’s articles of incorporation and the supplementary clauses of our prenuptial agreement, I have the right to initiate an asset freeze in the event of any high-risk relationship that could lead to a loss of company assets.” I took out my phone and, in front of all of them, dialed our bank’s corporate accounts manager. “This is Cade Sterling. There is a significant risk event associated with the corporate account ending in 7788 under Alex Vance’s name. As Chief Risk Officer, I am ordering an immediate freeze on all non-payroll expenditures from this account.” A professional voice replied, “Understood, Ms. Sterling. It’s done.” Alex’s phone vibrated again. This time, it was a notification of the account freeze. He stared at his phone, then at me, in disbelief. “Cade, are you serious?” I smoothed the lapels of my blazer. “In my world, there are no jokes.” With that, I turned and walked out of the private room. Behind me, I heard the sound of shattering porcelain and Alex’s enraged roar. “Cade! You just wait!” 2 Monday morning. Alex Vance’s company, Finance Department. I was sitting in my office, the Chief Risk Officer’s office, with a stack of expense reports in front of me. The door was pushed open. Brandi sauntered in, wearing a miniskirt that barely covered her thighs and carrying a cup of bubble tea. The finance manager followed her, looking mortified. “Ms. Sterling… I’m so sorry, Miss Brandi insisted on coming in.” I didn’t look up. I was using a six-figure Montblanc pen to circle items on the reports. “Get out.” The manager fled as if granted amnesty. Brandi plopped herself down on my desk, setting her bubble tea directly on my documents. Condensation seeped into the paper, smudging the ink. I stopped writing and finally looked up at her. She swung her legs, the toe of her shoe nearly kicking me in the face. “You’re so petty, Cade. Freezing Alex’s accounts? He had to borrow money from a friend just to get gas this morning. How embarrassing for him.” She reached for the expense reports on my desk. “And these… the finance department said they won’t process them without your signature. It’s just a few outfits. Alex said it’s part of building the company’s image.” I held the reports down, then pulled one out and held it up for her to see. “Victoria’s Secret. Lace lingerie. Three sets, total four hundred fifty dollars. Category: Office Supplies.” I looked her in the eye. “Miss Brandi, could you please clarify which office function requires this particular type of ‘supply’? Should I make a special note in the audit report that Alex Vance’s office offers… specialized services?” Brandi didn’t even blush. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing a dark red mark on her neck. A hickey. Displayed for my benefit. “Oh, come on, Cade. Don’t be such a prude. Alex is under a lot of stress. I help him relax in the office. Doesn’t that require a special ‘uniform’? I’m contributing to the company.” She reached for the pen in my hand. “This is a nice pen. Let me see it.” I didn’t let go. She yanked it hard. Her nail scraped across the back of my hand, drawing a thin line of blood. The pen was in her grasp. She uncapped it and, right on my mahogany desk, drew a crude caricature of me. Then she scrawled two words across it: THE WITCH. “Hehe, what do you think, Cade? Doesn’t it look just like you? So stiff and boring.” She spun the pen in her hand, then tapped it against the corner of the desk twice. The nib bent. A limited-edition pen worth over a hundred thousand dollars, ruined. I looked at the pen, then at the drawing on my desk. I took out my phone and took a picture of the desk. Then I took a picture of the scratch on my hand. Brandi pouted. “Pictures, pictures, that’s all you know how to do. Go ahead, tattle. Alex won’t care.” The door opened again. Alex walked in. He glanced at the mess on the desk and the pen in Brandi’s hand. He didn’t ask why my hand was bleeding. Instead, he frowned at me. “Cade, why are you giving Brandi a hard time again? She was just coming to get my signature and you held her hostage in your office?” Brandi immediately jumped off the desk and into Alex’s arms. “Alex! Cade was so mean to me! She said the lingerie I bought was… for indecent things. But you’re the one who said you liked it…” Alex patted her head and glared at me. “Cade, I’ve seen those expense reports. I approved them. You can’t be so rigid. It’s a few thousand dollars. Do you want people to think I’m so broke I can’t even cover that?” I pointed to the stack of reports. “It’s not just lingerie.” “There’s also a two-thousand-dollar spa membership, a five-thousand-dollar hotel suite bill, and even three hundred dollars for designer dog food.” “All of them are labeled ‘Office Supplies’ or ‘Business Entertainment’.” “Alex, this is called falsifying invoices. It’s a form of tax evasion.” Alex strode over and snatched the reports from my desk. Rrrrrip. He tore them to shreds. Paper rained down over me. “There. Now they’re gone,” he sneered. “You wanted evidence? It’s gone. Cade, stop trying to run my life with your stupid auditor rules. This company has my name on it, not yours. If you don’t like it, you can get the hell out.” Brandi clapped. “You’re so cool, Alex! It’s about time someone put this old hag in her place.” She carelessly tossed the broken pen into the trash. “Useless pen. A cheap ballpoint works better.” I stared at the pen in the wastebasket. It was the last gift my grandmother gave me before she passed away. I bent down. I retrieved the pen from the trash. Using a tissue, I carefully wiped away the smudges. I placed it in the inner pocket of my blazer. Then, I opened my desk drawer. I took out a new document. Notification of Revocation of Chief Financial Officer Authority. I didn’t show it to Alex. I simply placed it in my briefcase. I looked at him. “You tore up the receipts, but the digital records still exist. The bank transactions are still there.” “Alex, you didn’t just tear up paper.” “You tore up your last way out.” Alex scoffed and wrapped his arm around Brandi. “You’re insane. Come on, Brandi, I’ll buy you something new. We’ll really give her something to be mad about.” At the door, Brandi turned back, made a face at me, and flipped me the middle finger. “Old witch.”
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "387922", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel