Chapter 2 - The Audit of the Aristocracy
Two days later, the dining room of the Ambrose estate on Mount Soledad looked less like a home and more like a war room.
The heavy mahogany table—which I had purchased three years ago during one of Ryan’s “temporary cash flow crises”—was littered not with silver coffee service or church pamphlets, but with bank statements, wire transfer receipts, and forensic accounting summaries.
Ryan stood at the head of the table, his face flushed red, slamming his palm against the wood.
“This is insane! Charlotte, you hacked into my corporate accounts? You’re violating privacy laws!” Ryan shouted, pointing a shaking finger at me. He looked nothing like the charming, tailored husband who smiled beside me at charity galas. Right now, he looked like a cornered gambler whose bluff had been called.
Across from him sat Hugo, staring blankly at a single sheet of paper. The retired judge had aged ten years in forty-eight hours. His skin was gray, his shoulders slumped beneath the weight of humiliation. Janelle was locked upstairs in her bedroom, refusing to come down, though her muffled sobs occasionally drifted down the grand staircase.
I sat quietly near the window, sipping black coffee, my legs crossed.
“I didn't hack anything, Ryan,” I said, my voice cutting through his noise like a glass cutter. “As the sole majority shareholder and guarantor of Ruiz Holdings, I have legal oversight over every subsidiary account linked to our household credit lines. And for the past thirty-six months, those accounts have been bleeding money.”
Ryan swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward his father for support, but Hugo remained silent, staring at the paper.
“It’s... it’s business investments,” Ryan stammered, his bravado faltering. “Real estate ventures in downtown San Diego. You know how the market is. Things require liquidity—”
“Real estate ventures don't require wire transfers to boutique jewelry stores in La Jolla, nor do they require recurring monthly payments to a personal trainer named Jaxson Drake,” I replied smoothly.
Ryan froze. The color drained entirely from his face.
“How... how do you know about—?”
“Jaxson isn't just Janelle’s personal trainer, Ryan. He’s also the registered manager of a shell corporation called Apex Lifestyle LLC,” I said, sliding a thick manila folder across the mahogany table toward my husband. “A shell corporation that received precisely one million eight hundred thousand dollars from your account last Tuesday. And if we trace back the last three years, the total reaches six million, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Hugo finally looked up, his faded blue eyes locking onto his son.
“Ryan,” the old judge whispered, the word sounding like a dry bone snapping. “What is your mother talking about?”
Ryan looked like a man standing over an open grave. He didn't answer his father. Instead, he looked at me, his expression twisting from panic into a venomous, desperate snarl.
“You think you’re so smart, don't you?” Ryan spat, leaning over the table. “You think because you own some dress shops and pay the bills, you own us? Mom needed money! Jaxson had debts, and if those loan sharks came after him, they would have exposed the family name! They would have dragged us all through the mud!”
“So you used my capital—money earned from my boutiques, my investments, and my sweat—to pay off your mother’s young lover and his criminal associates?” I asked, tilting my head.
“It was for family preservation!” Ryan yelled, losing whatever control he had left. “We are the Ambr—”
“You were the Ambróses,” I corrected him, standing up slowly and buttoning my blazer. “As of nine o'clock this morning, my legal counsel filed an emergency injunction freezing every asset, credit card, and bank account bearing your name or your parents' names. The mansion is in my name. The cars are in my name. Even the trust fund your father uses for his medical bills is tied to my corporate backing.”
Hugo rose slowly from his chair, his hands trembling as he gripped the edge of the table. “Charlotte... surely we can negotiate. A family settlement. We can resolve this quietly, without scandal. Think of my judicial reputation—”
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“Your reputation died in that muddy lot on Sunset Boulevard, Judge,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “And your son’s financial life died the moment he stole from the wrong woman.”
I picked up my briefcase, turned toward the double doors of the dining room, and didn't look back once.
