Chapter 4 - Uncovering the Financial Fraud
Ten days after the wedding, Damian called.
I’d ignored seventeen messages and six voicemails.
His eighteenth message was different.
If you want to keep your mother’s company, come to the Hartwell shareholders’ meeting tomorrow.
I called him immediately.
“What have you done?”
He sounded relieved.
“Arya. Finally.”
“Answer me.”
“Your father has agreed to surrender his management position. Hartwell needs new leadership.”
“That’s a decision for the board.”
“Of course. But there are debts. Serious debts. If we can’t restructure, the company may have to sell its most valuable assets.”
My blood went cold.
“Which assets?”
“The waterfront properties.”
My mother had spent twenty years assembling those properties.
They were the foundation of Hartwell’s business.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I don’t want to, Arya. Come to the meeting. We can talk.”
“About the company?”
“About us.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The price of every conversation.
My time.
My forgiveness.
My obedience.
“Damian, there is no us.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “If you refuse to see me, don’t blame me for what happens to Hartwell.”
The call ended.
I was still staring at my phone when Roman entered the room.
“Bad news?”
“Damian is threatening to sell my mother’s company.”
Roman considered that.
“Then perhaps we should look at the books.”
“We?”
“Only if you want help.”
I told him everything.
He listened without interrupting.
Then he introduced me to Charlotte Bennett, a forensic accountant who had worked with Hartwell’s original finance team before my father dismissed her.
Charlotte arrived carrying two laptops and a cardboard box filled with old contracts.
She was in her fifties, wore red-framed glasses, and had the wonderfully impatient manner of someone who had spent her life arguing with men who thought expensive watches made them intelligent.
“Your mother was the smartest executive I ever worked for,” she told me.
Then she opened the first laptop.
“And somebody has been stealing from her company for years.”
The next four hours changed everything.
Charlotte showed me questionable payments to three consulting firms.
One was registered to Celeste’s brother.
Another had received almost eight million dollars for a harbor redevelopment study that was never completed.
The third had been established only six months earlier.
Its owner was a holding company connected to Damian.
I stared at the figures.
“My father approved these?”
Charlotte nodded.
“And Damian arranged the financing. Every time Hartwell borrowed money, his firm collected fees.”
I looked at Roman.
“So he didn’t want my shares because he loved me.”
“He wanted your votes,” Roman said.
“Why?”
Charlotte displayed a document.
A proposed sale of Hartwell’s waterfront division to a private investment fund.
The fund was controlled by Damian’s business associates.
The offered purchase price was dramatically below the valuation Charlotte had calculated from current leases and independent appraisals.
If the transaction succeeded, Hartwell would lose its most profitable properties.
Damian’s associates would gain them cheaply.
And he would be paid handsomely for arranging it.
I felt sick.
“My mother built this company from nothing.”
Charlotte touched my hand.
“Then we’d better make sure they don’t finish taking it apart.”
We worked until nearly midnight.
Roman provided access to his attorneys, but Charlotte and I went through the numbers ourselves.
I wanted to understand every transaction.
Every signature.
Every lie.
By dawn, we had copies of suspicious invoices, records of unauthorized transfers, and a series of emails linking Damian to an effort to obtain my trust’s voting rights.
There was one more discovery.
My father had signed a personal guarantee against the family house.
My mother’s house.
I stared at the document.
“Can he do that?”
“Not if he doesn’t own it,” Charlotte said.
She turned to another file.
“The deed is still held by your mother’s trust.”
I felt the room tilt.
All those years, my father had told me the house belonged to him.
He had treated me like a guest in the rooms where I’d grown up.
And the house had never been his to give away.
The following morning, I entered Hartwell headquarters with Charlotte, my attorney, and a leather portfolio containing every document we needed.
Roman accompanied us to the lobby.
“You’re not coming upstairs?” I asked.
“Not unless you ask.”
I looked at him.
“You’re letting me fight them alone?”
“No.”
He touched the portfolio.
“I’m letting you lead.”
I smiled.
Then I took the elevator to the thirty-second floor.
Damian was waiting in the boardroom.
My father sat beside him.
Vivian sat near the window, wearing an expensive pink dress and looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
When she saw me, she smirked.
“Well, look who’s decided to visit the family.”
I ignored her.
Seven directors were seated around the conference table.
Damian stood.
“Arya. I’m glad you came.”
“Let’s begin.”
He gestured toward an empty chair.
“Before we discuss the restructuring, perhaps we should talk privately.”
“No.”
“Arya—”
“I came here as a shareholder. Not as your former fiancée.”
His expression tightened.
One of the directors cleared his throat.
“We have an important proposal to consider.”
“I know.”
I opened my portfolio.
“And I have some questions.”
For the next forty minutes, I walked the directors through Charlotte’s findings.
The consulting payments.
The conflicts of interest.
The undervalued property sale.
The emails about my shares.
When I displayed an invoice approved by my father for work never performed, he went white.
“That’s confidential,” he snapped.
“It belongs to the company.”
Damian stood.
“These allegations are irresponsible.”
“Then you should welcome an independent investigation.”
I placed a formal audit request on the table.
One director, an older woman named Margaret Collins, leaned forward.
“Mr. Lockwood, is it true that your firm stands to receive a transaction fee if the waterfront sale proceeds?”
Damian hesitated.
“That’s standard business practice.”
“Did you disclose that interest before asking us to vote?”
Silence.
Margaret turned toward the other directors.
“I believe we need to suspend consideration of the transaction.”
My father slammed his palm onto the table.
“You can’t let her destroy everything we’ve built!”
I looked at him.
“Everything you’ve built?”
His mouth opened.
Then closed.
“My mother built this company,” I said. “You were supposed to protect it.”
Damian walked toward me.
“Arya, listen. I know I made mistakes. But I love you.”
I looked at him.
For a moment, I saw the young man in the hospital bed.
The man who had held my hand and promised forever.
Then I saw the man who kissed my sister at our wedding.
And I understood that both versions had always existed.
“You loved knowing I’d forgive you,” I said. “That’s not the same thing.”
He reached for my arm.
“Don’t do this.”
I stepped away.
“Meeting business only, Damian.”
The directors adjourned the proposed sale pending an independent audit. They also agreed to refer the trust and related-party transactions to outside counsel.
It wasn’t an instant victory.
The ownership disputes would take months to resolve.
The debts remained.
Employees and investors could still suffer from what my father and Damian had done.
But for the first time, the truth was on the record.
When I left the building, Roman was waiting outside beside a black SUV.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“We stopped the sale.”
He smiled.
“I never doubted you.”
I lifted my portfolio.
“Charlotte deserves half the credit.”
“Then I owe Charlotte dinner.”
I stepped into his arms.
He seemed momentarily surprised.
Then he hugged me.
I rested my cheek against his chest.
“I think my mother would have liked you.”
Roman became very still.
“I hope so.”
I was about to kiss him when my phone rang.
An unknown number.
I answered.
A woman’s voice whispered, “Mrs. Moretti?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Evelyn Porter. I used to work for your father.”
I stepped away from Roman.
“What do you want?”
The woman sounded terrified.
“There’s something you need to know about your mother’s death.”
My heart stopped.
She continued.
“Your mother didn’t die without knowing what your father was doing. She found out. And before she went into the hospital, she discovered something much worse than an affair.”
I could barely speak.
“What?”
A long silence followed.
May you like
Then Evelyn whispered five words that changed everything.
“Damian was never the beginning.”
