Chapter 6 - The Fall of the Startup
The next morning, the financial world woke up to a bloodbath. Julian’s startup, Apex Solutions, was raided by federal investigators. News vans were parked outside his sleek, glass-fronted downtown office.
Sitting in my sunlit kitchen, feeding Leo his bottle, I watched the morning news broadcast. They showed footage of agents carrying out boxes of hard drives and documents. Julian was caught on camera being led out the back door in handcuffs, looking disheveled and frantic.
He had played a dangerous game, using my family’s old money to leverage his reputation in the tech world. He assumed I was just a naive, pregnant housewife too exhausted by morning sickness to notice the discrepancies in our mail, the missing bank statements, and the hushed phone calls he took in the garage.
He didn't realize that before I became a mother, I was a senior financial analyst.
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The SEC charged him with massive corporate fraud. His investors, powerful people who didn't take kindly to losing millions, immediately filed civil suits. Julian was facing not just bankruptcy, but potentially a decade in federal prison.
I kissed the top of Leo’s soft, warm head. We were safe. The rot had been cut out of our lives before it could infect him.
