Chapter 5 - The Weight of the Ledger
A collective gasp rippled through the forty-seven relatives.
"No," Isabella breathed, shaking her head violently. "No, this is a mistake. Nicholas, you’re a handyman! I saw your tax returns! You barely made forty thousand dollars last year!"
"You saw the tax returns of 'Nicholas Vance, Independent Contractor,'" I replied, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the polished mahogany table. "A sole proprietorship I set up specifically to maintain the lie you begged me to tell. You wanted your family to think I was a loser so their fragile egos wouldn't be bruised by the fact that your husband was ten times more successful than all of them combined."
"Nicholas... please," Frank stammered, his face turning a deep, unnatural shade of red. "We... we didn't know. If we had known—"
"If you had known, what, Frank?" I interrupted, my voice sharp as a razor. "You would have treated my daughter with respect? You wouldn't have thrown a sixteen-year-old girl out into the snow on Christmas Eve without a coat because my truck 'looked trashy'?"
I stood up, walking slowly around the table. The Hendersons shrank back as I approached, their previous arrogance completely evaporated. They looked like cornered animals.
"For eight years, I sat at your holidays and listened to you call me a 'toolbox son-in-law.' I listened to your sons brag about their BMWs—BMWs that were leased through my corporate fleet account. I watched my wife buy designer jewelry with credit cards funded by my company's profit margins, while she treated my daughter like an unwanted ghost."
I stopped right in front of Isabella. She looked at me, tears of panic finally spilling over her eyelashes.
"Nicholas, I loved you," she lied, her voice trembling. "I was just trying to protect our marriage... my family's pride..."
"You didn't love me, Isabella. You loved the comfortable life I quietly subsidized while keeping me in the dark corners of your social life," I said, looking down at her. "And last night, when you handed me those divorce papers while my daughter was shivering on the porch... you made the easiest decision of my life."
I nodded to Arthur, who opened his folder and began passing out documents to Frank, Julian, and Marcus.
"What is this?" Julian asked, his voice shaking as he looked at the pages.
"Those are forensic audits of your respective divisions," Arthur announced. "Over the last five years, Julian, you have embezzled approximately eighty-four thousand dollars through fake procurement receipts. Marcus, you have used the company expense account to fund three personal vacations to Cabo. And Frank, you have logged a total of forty-eight hours of actual work over the last twelve months while collecting nearly a quarter of a million dollars annually."
"This is corporate fraud," I said, looking back at them. "I have two choices. I can hand these files over to the district attorney today, or you can sign these non-disclosure and liability waiver agreements, accepting your terminations with cause, forfeiting any right to severance or legal recourse."
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"You... you can't do this to us," Susan wept, clutching her husband's arm. "We'll lose the house!"
"You should have thought about that before you threw my daughter into the snow," I said coldly. "You have ten minutes to sign. After that, my legal team calls the police."
