Chapter 7 - The Night I Chose Myself
For the first time, I admitted that I was frightened. Not of being alone, which I already knew how to survive, but of allowing people who treated me as leverage to control the rest of my pregnancy.
Lena helped me document the new message. We coordinated with hospital staff about privacy and with local authorities about the threats. She explained options without pretending any plan could remove every risk.
I took several days off work. Marta brought soup, helped me fold baby clothes, and refused to make my apartment feel like a crisis center.
“Your daughter is going to know a lot of people love her,” she said.
I smiled.
“You think it's a girl?”
“You've told me the ultrasound results three times.”
We laughed, and for a moment the fear lifted.
Thomas asked permission to attend a discussion about the baby's medical needs. I declined that week but agreed to let Lena share essential information through counsel.
He accepted the boundary.
More importantly, he continued cooperating with the investigation even when doing so exposed his own failure to supervise the people he trusted.
At McCauley Capital, an independent committee confirmed serious accounting discrepancies and referred relevant information for appropriate review. It also began examining how Vincent had persuaded executives to approve documents they had barely read.
Then an auditor located a ledger entry describing the $8.4 million as “Mrs. McCauley's voluntary contribution.”
I stared at those words.
Voluntary.
Nobody had asked me.
At the bottom of the entry was an electronic approval attributed to Thomas himself.
I called Lena.
May you like
“Does that mean he knew?”
“I don't know yet,” she said. “But now we know the exact question the review must answer.”
