I stared at the glowing screen in sheer disbelief. I had never disclosed my new employment location to him or Florence, nor had Garrett ever mentioned my name to the department managers.
Before I could process the breach, a second text arrived: “Listen to me for once in your life. Stay away from Garrett Corbin before this whole situation collateralizes and destroys you too.”
Looking toward the hallway leading to Garrett’s wing, I realized a terrifying truth. Christopher was not afraid of what I currently knew; he was terrified of what I was bound to discover. And we still needed to figure out who had secretly informed him of my presence in the Corbin household.
PART 3
The following morning, I completely ignored Christopher’s messages, and Garrett never pressured me to address them either.
“Your personal past with him belongs entirely to you,” Garrett reassured me during his morning exercise routine. “My corporation is my sole responsibility, and I have no interest in using your history to attack anyone.”
His restraint made me trust his integrity even more. After spending twelve years with people who constantly rationalized trampling over my boundaries under the guise of family duty, working for someone who respected my autonomy felt remarkably refreshing.
Attorney Vance continued his quiet investigation and soon discovered that multiple electronic signatures had been authorized using Garrett’s high-level credentials during months when he was physically incapable of holding a lengthy conversation. While this digital trail did not immediately prove who had stolen the credentials, it provided undeniable grounds for a complete forensic audit covering nearly eight million dollars in questionable transfers.
“An anomaly is not an automatic criminal conviction,” Attorney Vance reminded us cautiously. “First we document every trace, and only then do we assign formal liability.”
Two days later, Florence unexpectedly appeared right outside the security gate of the estate. I found her standing by the iron bars holding a leather handbag, looking visibly weathered and anxious.
“Rebecca, please, I urgently need to speak with you,” Florence pleaded as I walked down the driveway.
I stepped through the pedestrian gate, but I made sure not to invite her inside the property.
“Christopher is completely falling apart,” Florence began, her voice trembling slightly.
“You should really discuss his emotional state directly with him,” I replied neutrally.
“He told me that you are living inside the home of his chief executive,” she continued, wringing her hands nervously. “He is terrified that this audit will ruin his hard-earned career.”
“If Christopher did not engage in any illegal acts, a standard corporate audit should not frighten him,” I stated plainly.
Florence pressed her lips into a thin, bitter line. “You know my son better than anyone, Rebecca. He is not a common criminal.”
“I also foolishly believed I knew him as a faithful husband,” I countered evenly.
Florence then begged me to talk to Garrett on Christopher’s behalf, asking me to claim that her son was merely following orders from superiors and to remember the twelve years we had shared together. Then she uttered a statement that stung deeper than I anticipated.
“After everything our family did to take care of you for all those years,” she added sourly.
I stared at her in total disbelief. For years, I had cooked her meals, driven her to clinics, maintained her living space, and put my entire life on hold because everyone treated my self-sacrifice as a baseline expectation. Yet in her warped memory, they had generously sheltered me, and I somehow owed them a lifelong debt.
“Florence, a few months ago you told me that leaving your home would teach me how much it costs to survive in the real world,” I said, looking her dead in the eye. “I have indeed learned what it costs, and I have also discovered exactly how much my labor is worth when someone actually respects it.”
I turned around and walked back inside without engaging in further debate.
A week later, I received a surprise message from Brenda, the woman Christopher had cheated on me with. She requested an urgent face-to-face meeting, and while my initial instinct was to block her contact, her follow-up message changed everything.
“I have original accounting manifests related to those purchase orders,” Brenda wrote. “Christopher gave them to me to process, but I realize now that I made a terrible mistake.”
I immediately notified Attorney Vance, and we arranged a meeting at his downtown office. Brenda arrived looking utterly pale, clutching a flash drive and a thick paper folder.
“Christopher asked me to reformat specific balance sheets,” Brenda explained nervously, avoiding my eyes. “He claimed they were minor internal adjustments before the scheduled external review.”
Having worked as a financial analyst on the same project team, she initially suspected nothing. However, she eventually uncovered duplicate entries, urgent requests to bypass standard approval channels, and internal emails instructing staff to split large disbursements into smaller items to avoid triggering automatic compliance flags.
“Did Christopher personally make those structural alterations?” Attorney Vance inquired directly.
Brenda lowered her head in shame. “Some of them were edited by his login, while other files were already modified when they arrived at our desk.”
“Who was issuing those direct operational orders?” Attorney Vance pressed further.
Brenda paused for several seconds before speaking clearly. “The vast majority of those mandates originated from the executive director’s office, which reports directly to Douglas Corbin.”
While that disclosure did not single-handedly prove Douglas was the sole architect of the scheme, it opened a crucial new investigative path. The secondary vendor receiving the largest suspect payouts shared direct corporate ties with a close relative of Gertrude, the very same woman who had attempted to bribe me with twenty thousand dollars.
Garrett listened to the detailed findings without raising his voice once, though his knuckles turned white as he gripped the armrests of his wheelchair.
“Preserve every single digital artifact,” Garrett commanded firmly. “I want to ensure not a single email disappears from the server.”
Then another critical piece of the puzzle fell into place. The personal driver who was navigating Garrett’s vehicle on the day of the crash finally updated his official statement. After claiming for months that he had no memory of the event, he admitted to accepting a cash bribe to omit one key fact: Garrett had indeed visited the secondary warehouse that morning to access the paper archives.
“Were you paid to orchestrate the actual collision?” Attorney Vance asked the driver.
The driver vehemently denied it, and the police records, weather logs, and physical vehicle damage corroborated that the crash was simply an accident caused by heavy rain, slick asphalt, and a sudden evasive maneuver away from an oncoming car. The reality was far less cinematic, making it even more chilling. Nobody had needed to stage a dramatic murder attempt; someone had simply capitalized on a tragic opportunity. While Garrett was fighting for his life in intensive care, opportunistic relatives and executives had weeks to breach administrative portals, alter files, and cover their tracks.
When the formal internal audit was officially announced, Douglas exploded with rage. He burst into Garrett’s private study one afternoon accompanied by Gertrude.
“Are you honestly framing your own brother as a corporate thief?” Douglas yelled, his face turning red.
Garrett remained calmly seated in his chair. “I am simply treating document discrepancies as actual discrepancies.”
“I am your blood brother!” Douglas shouted.
“That physical fact does not alter digital audit trails,” Garrett replied without wavering.
Gertrude pointed an angry finger directly at me. “Ever since this outsider moved into our home, everything in this family has been systematically destroyed!”
Douglas spun around to glare at me as well. “She divorces one of our middle managers and miraculously lands a live-in job in the president’s house. Does nobody else find that coincidence suspicious?”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, but before I could utter a single word, Garrett intervened with authority.
“The structural rot in this family began long before Rebecca ever set foot through that door,” Garrett stated firmly.
Douglas let out a bitter, mocking laugh. “Of course. Now she is the only person in the world you trust.”
“I never once asked her to spy or investigate anything for me,” Garrett replied.
“Yet you share confidential case files with her!” Douglas retaliated.
“Because when your wife tried to bribe her to betray my privacy, Rebecca handed the money right back,” Garrett revealed coldly.
Gertrude turned completely pale as Evelyn, who had been listening near the doorway, stepped forward.
“What bribe are you talking about, Gertrude?” Evelyn asked, her voice trembling.
When nobody offered an explanation, Garrett clearly detailed the incident with the cash envelope. Evelyn looked at her daughter-in-law as if she were looking at a complete stranger. Douglas attempted to step between them to diffuse the tension.
“Mother, you do not understand how high-stakes corporate management works,” Douglas insisted. “Gertrude was merely trying to protect our family’s interests.”
Evelyn remained completely silent for a long moment. For months, she had strived to avoid any conflict between her sons, believing that a mother’s duty was to keep the peace regardless of the circumstances. But that afternoon, she said something nobody in the room expected.
“If you have done nothing illegal, Douglas, then let the auditors examine every single file,” Evelyn declared quietly.
Douglas stared at his mother in absolute disbelief. “Are you taking sides against your own son now?”
Tears welled up in Evelyn’s eyes as she shook her head. “I am not against you, Douglas. I am simply refusing to cover for your wrongdoing any longer just because you came from my body.”
Unable to respond, Douglas grabbed his car keys and stormed out of the house. Garrett offered no celebration, simply closing his eyes in quiet exhaustion.
“Losing trust in a brother hurts far more than losing financial assets,” Garrett murmured softly to the room.
The crucial board of directors meeting was scheduled two weeks later. By then, Garrett had made extraordinary physical progress in his daily rehabilitation. He still relied on his wheelchair for long distances, but he could stand upright for short intervals using a heavy-duty walker.
On the morning of the meeting, Justin gave him a stern reminder. “You are not going into that boardroom to prove anything reckless to anyone.”
