Chapter 3 - The Audit of the Blackwood EmpireBy 11:00 PM that evening, the high-security executive suite at Blackwood Capital was transformed into a command center.
Naomi and the twins were resting safely in the penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton under the round-the-clock protection of Marcus Vance—chief of Vance Global Security and Martin Vance's older brother. Theo and Eli were asleep in plush beds, while Naomi sat with a hot cup of tea, reading through twenty years of recovered corporate records.
Inside my study, Bridget Colton, senior managing partner of Colton & Vance International, sat across from me alongside three federal forensic accountants.
Bridget opened three thick leather binders bound in red seals, sliding high-definition digital ledgers flat onto the desk toward me:
THE ARTHURS BENNETT FRAUD RECOVERY: Certified forensic evidence proving Eleanor Blackwood forged land deeds in 2006 to steal the South Chicago Commercial Docks from Arthur Bennett, an asset now valued at $220 million.
THE STOLEN TRUST CAPITAL: Banking ledgers documenting Eleanor secretly diverting $45 million from the Blackwood Family Trust over five years to fund private estates in Palm Beach and Monaco.
THE EMBEZZLEMENT OF THE TWINS: Proof that Eleanor used corporate legal fees to pay a rogue security firm to monitor Naomi’s apartment in Evanston, ensuring Naomi could never reach me.
"Preston, my dear," Bridget spoke softly, her sharp blue eyes holding profound professional fury. "The legal grounds are absolute. Because your mother executed these transfers using your late father's forged signature, every contract she signed in the last twenty years is legally void."
"What does that mean for the Bennett estate, Bridget?" I asked flatly.
"It means," Bridget revealed, sliding a second set of documents across the desk, "that Naomi Bennett is the sole fifty-one percent controlling common equity holder of the South Chicago Commercial Docks and half of Blackwood Capital."
I looked at the ledgers, feeling a clean, weightless satisfaction settle in my chest.
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My mother had tried to destroy Naomi to protect a fortune built on blood and lies. Now, that very fortune belonged entirely to the woman she had cast into poverty.
"Issue the federal asset freeze on my mother's accounts immediately," I ordered smooth as ice. "And inform her that her flight from Palm Beach to Chicago tomorrow morning will be her last."
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