Adrian takes them.
His legal counsel, a woman in a black suit standing two steps behind him, moves closer. Her name tag reads Evelyn Hart. She looks like someone who eats men like Caleb for breakfast and bills them for the napkin.
Adrian reads the first page.
Then the second.
His face does not change much, but the air around him does.
“What am I looking at?” he asks quietly.
You keep your eyes on Caleb. “Expense irregularities in Caleb’s division. Vendor inflation. Duplicate consulting fees. Reimbursements for trips he claimed were client-related but weren’t. Payments routed through a company called M&R Strategic Services.”
Mara goes pale.
There it is.
M&R.
Mara and Rowan.
Caleb’s mouth opens, then closes.
Adrian looks at Evelyn. “Do we know that vendor?”
Evelyn takes the page, scans it, and says, “It appeared in the transition files. Mid-tier consulting contractor. Approved under Rowan’s department.”
Caleb raises both hands. “This is insane. My wife does bookkeeping from our kitchen table and thinks she’s uncovered a conspiracy.”
You smile faintly.
That line might have worked yesterday.
Not tonight.
“I do more than bookkeeping from the kitchen table, Caleb. I corrected your quarterly forecast. I found the payroll misclassification you missed. I caught the tax penalty before it became public. I rewrote the client retention report you presented as your own last spring.”
