Chapter 5
Julian didn't rush. He closed the distance between the doorway and the mahogany desk with slow, deliberate strides, his boots making a soft thudding sound on the thick Persian rug. Arthur instinctively backed away until the small of his back pressed hard against the heavy wooden bookshelf, his fingers curling over the edge of a mahogany shelf filled with leather-bound legal digests.
"You have no jurisdiction here, Julian," Arthur said, trying to inject a commanding tremor into his voice, though it sounded thin and hollow even to his own ears. "This is a private corporate matter between partners. Elena may have survived the accident—and I am profoundly relieved by that, for the record—but our legal separation and the restructuring of the asset holding trust were signed off by three independent magistrates."
Julian stopped three feet away. He reached into the inner pocket of his green suede jacket and pulled out a thick manila folder, untying the red cotton string with practiced ease. He didn't open it immediately; he simply held it up so Arthur could see the red ink stamp across the top corner: CONFIDENTIAL – FORENSIC AUDIT.
"Magistrates who relied entirely on medical examiner reports from a county where your cousin happens to be the chief administrator," Julian said quietly. He opened the folder and flipped to a single sheet of paper, holding it out. "Coincidences like that make auditors very nervous, Arthur. Especially when the VIN number of the car found in the ravine belongs to a sedan that was reported stolen from an impound lot in Seattle three days before the crash, while Elena’s actual vehicle was sitting in a long-term parking garage at Sea-Tac airport under a different ticket stub."
Arthur’s eyes darted to the paper, then back up to Julian’s face. All the color had drained from his cheeks, leaving him looking chalky under the warm desk lamps. "That's circumstantial. It proves nothing about the corporate transfer."
"It proves you forged a death certificate to accelerate a hostile takeover of a multi-million-dollar estate while your wife was attending a confidential board intervention in Vancouver," Elena’s voice rang out from the doorway.
She stepped into the study, her long white coat still unbuttoned, with Lily holding tightly to the hem of her black dress behind her. The little girl looked sleepy, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, but her grip on her mother never slackened. Elena walked past Julian and placed both hands flat on the mahogany desk, leaning forward until her face was inches from Arthur’s.
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"You didn't just try to steal my company, Arthur," Elena whispered, her voice dropping into a register so cold it made the air in the room feel brittle. "You tried to erase my existence. And you used our daughter's grief as a shield to do it."
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The polished facade had completely shattered, leaving only a desperate man trapped in the wreckage of his own greed.
