Chapter 2 - The Stolen Signature
I sat in my car for twenty minutes, struggling to pull oxygen into my lungs.
I immediately dialed the fraud department of my bank.
The representative placed me on hold for what felt like an eternity.
When she finally returned, her voice was laced with professional sympathy.
She informed me that the transfer could not be flagged as fraudulent.
The wire had been authorized using my exact social security number, my digital signature, and a dual-authentication code sent to my father’s backup email address.
My father had set himself up as an emergency contact on my account when I was eighteen.
I had completely forgotten to remove him.
The representative politely asked if I wanted to open a dispute, but warned me that family disputes rarely resulted in reversed charges.
I hung up the phone, feeling a cold, dark fury settle into my bones.
They had used my life savings to purchase something from a company called Apex Luxury Holdings.
I drove to a cheap motel, paid for a room with the cash I had in my pocket, and opened my laptop.
I spent the next three hours tracking the public records associated with Apex Luxury Holdings.
It did not take long to find the matching property deed filed in the county database.
It was a lavish, high-rise condominium located in the most expensive neighborhood of my hometown.
The name on the deed was Madison.
My twenty-two-year-old, unemployed sister was now the proud owner of a luxury condo, entirely funded by my stolen money.
They had sacrificed my future to buy her a glass castle.
I closed my laptop and stared at the peeling wallpaper of the motel room.
I was not going to cry, and I was certainly not going to call them to beg for my own money.
I was going to destroy them.
I picked up my phone and dialed the number of the top corporate defense lawyer in Chicago.
A man named Silas Vance answered on the second ring.
I told him I needed to hire him to orchestrate a hostile financial takeover of my own family.
Silas chuckled darkly and asked how a broke girl in a motel planned to afford his retainer.
May you like
I smiled, looking at the second hidden folder on my computer screen.
I told Silas that my father worked as a senior accountant for a major logistics firm, and I had a copy of every illegal tax evasion scheme he had run for the last decade.
