Chapter 4 - THE GOLD POCKET WATCH
I picked up the heavy gold watch, tracing the worn engraving on the back.
Gavin had pawned his family’s only legacy. A man driven by ego does not surrender his grandfather’s watch unless he is drowning in a panic he cannot control.
“He’s embezzling the loan money,” I said, pulling the first-class tickets to Geneva from my coat pocket and placing them on the desk. “One-way. Departing next Friday. He’s transferring the borrowed millions to offshore accounts, preparing to let the logistics company collapse and leave the Wexler Trust holding the debt.”
My father stared at the tickets, his jaw tightening. “He’s using my own capital structure as a shield to steal from private creditors, and then he plans to vanish with his mistress.”
“But how did he get the loans?” I asked, leaning forward. “No private lender gives millions to a logistics manager without an underwriter. The trust didn't co-sign.”
“That is the question,” my father said. He tapped his fingers against the mahogany desk. “Gavin needed a silent partner. Someone with enough clean credit to convince the lenders that the debt was secure.”
My father opened his laptop and accessed a secure banking portal. He pulled up the encrypted records his investigators had managed to scrape from Gavin’s secondary accounts.
“Look at the signature line on the promissory note,” my father said, turning the screen toward me.
I squinted at the digital document. There, at the bottom of a loan agreement for four million dollars, was Gavin’s bold signature.
But right beneath it was a second signature. A co-signer.
Marcus Thorne.
The blood drained from my face.
Marcus Thorne wasn't just a business acquaintance. He was my godfather. He was the man who had taught me how to ride a bicycle, the man who had stood beside my father for thirty years as his most trusted legal advisor.
“Marcus?” I whispered, unable to comprehend it. “Marcus co-signed Gavin’s fraudulent loans? Why would he betray you?”
“Because Marcus has been slowly losing his mind to a gambling addiction for five years,” my father said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I bailed him out twice, but I cut him off last year. Gavin must have discovered Marcus's debts and offered him a cut of the embezzled funds to act as his underwriter.”
Answer one, open two. Gavin wasn't just stealing money; he had corrupted my father's inner circle to do it.
“Gavin thinks he’s untraceable,” my father murmured, closing the laptop. “He plans to announce the company’s fake public offering at his corporate gala on Thursday. He’ll use the investor deposits from the gala to pay off Marcus, take the rest of the cash, and board that flight to Geneva on Friday.”
My father looked at me, the warmth returning to his blue eyes. “He humiliated you, Elena. He struck you. Do you want me to call the police and have him arrested for the assault tonight?”
I looked at the gold pocket watch resting on the desk. I thought about Brielle wearing my mother’s sapphire bracelet. I thought about the sheer arrogance of a man who believed he could abuse his wife and steal her family’s legacy without consequence.
“No,” I said, my voice hardening into steel. “An arrest tonight is too quiet. He cares about his image more than anything in this world. I want to take it from him in front of everyone he’s ever tried to impress.”
My father smiled—a terrifying, predatory smile. “Then we have work to do.”
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As I stood up to leave the study, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was an automated alert from my home security system.
Someone had just accessed my private home office.
