I leaned forward in the armchair to examine the faint ink lines on the paper. “What am I looking at?” I asked softly.
“These are illicit wire transfers,” Beatrice explained, pointing to the specific dates and amounts. “Charles quietly moved all the recoverable company assets into personal accounts that only he could access.”
My stomach tightened into a painful knot as I read the numbers. “He did this right before the worst of the crisis hit the company,” she continued coldly.
“Why would he do something so terrible?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“He did it because of you,” Beatrice answered sharply.
“Because of me?” I asked, recoiling slightly.
“He wanted to protect his own young family,” she said, tapping her finger on the ledger. “He wanted to shield you and your three small children from poverty, so he took the remaining wealth and left Christopher holding every single debt, every aggressive creditor, and a completely ruined reputation.”
“That simply cannot be right,” I argued, shaking my head in denial. “Charles was an honorable man.”
“These documents prove it is the absolute truth,” Beatrice asserted firmly. She picked up a folded handwritten page from the pile. “This is a letter in my brother’s own handwriting, where he literally begged Charles to honor their original partnership agreement, but Charles never once answered his pleas.”
