Chapter 1 - The Brass Key
The morning after the funeral, the city of Seattle was locked in a torrential downpour, mirroring the storm raging inside me. I didn't bother with an umbrella as I walked into the grand lobby of First Fidelity Bank. I was wet, dressed in the same black coat from the cemetery, and clutching the brass key David had given me.
"I need to access a private deposit box," I told the teller, my voice devoid of any emotion.
Ten minutes later, a bank manager left me alone in a sterile, windowless vault room. I inserted the brass key into box 814. It clicked, heavy and final. Inside rested a thick, leather-bound ledger and a secondary encrypted hard drive. I opened the ledger. Thomas’s meticulous handwriting covered every page. He had tracked it all. Every time my brother Julian had siphoned "consulting fees" from our startup. Every time my mother had forged Thomas’s signature to secure lines of credit for her country club renovations.
May you like
The most damning piece was a signed contract, buried in the back. My parents had secretly leveraged their own estate against our company's stock, assuming that upon Thomas's death, I would inherit everything and simply forgive the debt. They assumed I was just a grieving widow who didn't know how to read a balance sheet. They forgot I built the company’s legal infrastructure from the ground up.
I pulled out my phone and dialed David Vance. "David," I said, staring at a wire transfer receipt that proved Julian had committed federal tax fraud. "Freeze all company credit cards. Lock the executive accounts. Call the board. We are going to war."
