Salma froze. Her green matcha latte sloshed against the plastic cup. The ice clinked loudly in the dead silence of the hallway.
"What are you doing here?" she finally stammered. "Gavin said you were in the hospital."
I didn't blink. I looked at her tight red dress. Then I looked at the Cartier necklace. It sparkled under the harsh fluorescent lights. It belonged to me, but I didn't care about the jewelry right now. I cared about my company.
"This is the CFO's office," I said. My voice was calm. It carried down the hall. Employees peeked out of their cubicles. Phones stopped ringing.
"Gavin gave it to me," Salma said. She lifted her chin, trying to look brave. But her hand shook slightly. "I'm the executive assistant. I need to be close to the CEO."
I walked past her and picked up the desk phone. I pressed the button for security.
"This is Indie Carter," I said into the receiver. "Send two guards to the fiftieth floor. Immediately."
Salma's eyes went wide. "You can't do that. Gavin will fire you!"
I hung up the phone. I walked slowly toward her. My black stilettos clicked on her cheap pink rug. She took a step back.
"I built this company," I said quietly. "I own the majority shares. You don't work for Gavin. You work for Edwards & Co. And I am Edwards & Co."
The elevator dinged. Two large security guards stepped out. They looked confused, but they walked over fast.
"Mrs. Edwards?" one of them asked.
"Carter," I corrected him. "Clear this room. Remove the pink chairs, the rug, and the desk. Put it all in the freight elevator. Throw the photos in the trash."
"Wait!" Salma shrieked. "Those are mine! You can't touch them!"
I stepped closer to her. I could smell her heavy floral perfume. I looked right into her panicked eyes.
"You sit where I tell you to sit," I said coldly. "And right now, I'm telling you to leave."
She opened her mouth to scream, but the guards stepped forward. The whole floor watched in silence. Salma turned bright red. She spun around on her heels and ran toward the elevator. Her shoes clattered loudly as she fled.
The guards worked fast. In twenty minutes, the office was totally empty. It echoed when I breathed. I stood by the big glass window and looked out at the city. The fog in my brain was completely gone.
The door clicked shut behind me. The lock turned with a sharp snap.
I turned around. It was Kelly Hunt, my old executive assistant. She wore a neat navy blazer. Her hair was pulled back perfectly. She never missed a detail. Gavin always ignored her, but I knew her kids' names.
She walked up to me. She didn't say hello. She didn't ask about my hospital stay. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver USB drive. She placed it right in the center of my hand.
"I've been waiting for you to come back," she said softly.
I looked at the drive. It felt heavy. "What is this, Kelly?"
"Everything," she replied. "Every fake expense. Every deleted email. She bullied the staff. She canceled projects she didn't understand. I kept copies of it all."
I felt a tight lump in my throat. I squeezed the USB drive. "Thank you, Kelly."
Kelly nodded once. "Welcome back, Indie." She unlocked the door and left me alone.
I sat right on the bare floor. I didn't have a chair yet. I opened my laptop and plugged in the drive. The screen glowed against my face. I clicked the first folder. It was named 'Vendor Invoices'.
I am a Wharton-trained CFO. Numbers are my language. They don't lie. I scrolled through the spreadsheets. My eyes darted across the columns. Within thirty minutes, I found the rot.
Salma wasn't just buying designer clothes on the company card. She was stealing.
There were phantom vendor payments. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were sent to a consulting firm that didn't exist. The address linked back to a P.O. Box in New Jersey. I checked the routing numbers. They matched Salma's personal bank accounts. She was sloppy. She thought no one would ever check.
Then I opened the quarterly reports. My stomach dropped. She had falsified the revenue projections. She inflated the numbers to make the company look rich. She did it to secure our Series C funding. Gavin had to know about this. He signed off on these reports. He let her cook the books just to feed his own ego. He wanted to look like a genius to the investors.
My chest felt tight, but not from sadness. It was the thrill of the hunt. The fraud was massive. It was enough to trigger an SEC investigation. It was enough to send her to federal prison.
At 4:00 PM, I left the building. I walked three blocks to a dark, quiet steakhouse. I slid into a leather booth in the back corner.
Marcus Webb sat across from me. He was the lead corporate attorney for Edwards & Co. He wore a sharp gray suit and sipped a glass of water.
"You look pale, Indie," he said.
"I'm fine, Marcus. Did you look at the files I sent you?"
He set his glass down. He didn't smile. "I did. It's bad. Embezzlement. Securities fraud. Forgery. Salma Boyd is looking at serious jail time."
"And Gavin?" I asked.
Marcus sighed heavily. "He signed the documents. He's complicit. If we take this to the board right now, the company's stock will tank. We need a strategy. We have to protect the company while we cut out the cancer."
I leaned forward. The leather seat creaked. "The annual investor presentation is next week. The board will be there. The media will be there."
Marcus narrowed his eyes. "You want to do it then? In front of everyone?"
"Yes," I said firmly. "Salma thinks she owns my company. Gavin thinks I'm too unstable to fight back. I want them to feel safe. I want them to walk into that room thinking they won."
Marcus tapped his fingers on the table. He was a cautious man, but he hated dirty business. He hated what Gavin had become.
"I will draft the formal complaint to the District Attorney," Marcus said quietly. "I'll coordinate with the NYPD. When you give the signal, the police will be waiting in the lobby."
"Make the case airtight," I told him. "No loopholes. No way out."
"It will be," he promised.
I walked out of the restaurant later that evening. The sun was setting over Manhattan. The sky was painted orange and gold. I took a deep breath of the cold city air. For the first time in years, my mind was perfectly quiet. There was no anxiety. There was no fear.
The war had started. And I was going to win.
