Chapter 2 - The Account Nobody Was Supposed to Find
“Samuel.”
I kept my eyes on Alexander.
“Tell me who CR-17 belongs to.”
Samuel looked as though he wanted the floor to open beneath him.
“Elena,” Alexander said, “this isn’t the place.”
“It became the place when you walked in.”
Camila stood beside him, her confidence from downstairs noticeably diminished.
I pointed at her wrist.
“Take off the watch.”
Her hand instinctively covered it.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Alexander stepped between us.
“Elena, enough.”
I looked at him.
“Be very careful with that word.”
For eleven years, Alexander had known exactly where my boundaries were.
He had apparently forgotten.
Samuel finally spoke.
“CR-17 is assigned to Camila Reyes.”
Silence.
I had expected the answer.
Still, hearing it hurt.
Camila immediately shook her head.
“I don’t know anything about internal codes.”
“Did Alexander give you that watch?”
Her eyes shifted toward him again.
“Yes.”
The word landed quietly.
I turned to my husband.
“The watch I chose for your mother?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No. Complicated is a multinational tax structure. This is a watch.”
“Elena—”
“Did you buy it after I asked you to?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell me you had it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give it to Camila?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Something inside my chest seemed to fracture.
But I refused to give either of them the satisfaction of seeing it.
Camila’s expression changed too.
There was almost triumph in it now.
That interested me.
She wanted me to believe the obvious.
Why?
Alexander lowered his voice.
“You’re drawing the wrong conclusion.”
“Then give me the right one.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
I almost laughed.
My husband had just admitted giving his assistant an extraordinarily rare watch that I had selected for his mother, and his defense was that he could not explain why.
Then Samuel spoke.
“There’s more.”
Alexander turned sharply.
“Samuel.”
The warning in his voice was unmistakable.
I looked at Samuel.
“Continue.”
He swallowed.
“The CR-17 expenses aren’t limited to the watch.”
He brought up another page.
Over eighteen months, more than $430,000 had passed through expenses associated with Camila’s code.
Hotels.
Airfare.
Luxury purchases.
Private transportation.
Cash-equivalent reimbursements.
Camila stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
For the first time, I believed her reaction.
Not trusted.
Believed.
There was a difference.
“You didn’t submit these?” I asked.
“No.”
Alexander moved toward the computer.
“Some of those expenses are authorized.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
That changed everything.
I turned back to Samuel.
“Freeze the discretionary account.”
Alexander’s head snapped toward me.
“You can’t do that.”
“I can.”
“Elena.”
“As of midnight, Internal Audit reports to the CEO.”
Camila frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
I looked at the clock.
9:21 a.m.
Thirty-nine minutes until the announcement.
“You’ll find out.”
Alexander moved closer.
“There are things happening inside this company you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He said nothing.
I hated that silence more than the watch.
Because Alexander was not behaving like a man trying to hide an affair.
He was behaving like a man afraid of something else.
And that frightened me.
I asked Samuel to trace the authorization chain.
Several transactions carried Alexander’s digital approval.
Others carried something almost identical.
Almost.
Samuel enlarged two authorization signatures.
“There,” he said.
I saw it.
A tiny difference in the encryption sequence.
“Someone cloned his authorization credentials?”
“Possibly.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
“You weren’t supposed to find this today.”
I turned slowly.
“You knew?”
“I knew money was moving.”
“For how long?”
“Three weeks.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“Apparently not your wife.”
His expression tightened.
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is making junior employees climb five flights of stairs because your assistant thinks they’re beneath her.”
Camila stiffened.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“It has everything to do with this.”
I walked toward her.
“You told me anyone working with Alexander goes through you. You threatened to have my badge revoked. How many employees have you threatened?”
Her confidence returned.
“I enforce standards.”
“No. You enforce hierarchy.”
I turned to Samuel.
“Pull HR complaints involving Ms. Reyes.”
Camila’s face changed.
“You have no authority to—”
Alexander interrupted.
“She does.”
The room went silent.
Camila stared at him.
“What?”
He looked at me.
I could see how much he hated what was coming.
“Elena was appointed CEO three days ago.”
Camila laughed once.
It sounded involuntary.
Then she realized nobody else was laughing.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She’s your wife.”
“She is also the person who rebuilt our Midwest manufacturing division, renegotiated the Pacific logistics contracts, and led the restructuring that kept twelve thousand employees on payroll.”
Camila looked at me.
The color drained from her face.
“The announcement is at ten,” Alexander continued.
Her eyes dropped to the watch.
Then back to me.
I could almost see her replaying the lobby conversation.
Interns take the freight elevator.
Don’t dirty the executive elevator.
I’m going to have HR revoke your badge.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“That,” I said, “is precisely the problem.”
Because kindness toward someone powerful was meaningless.
Character revealed itself in how you treated someone you believed had no power at all.
Samuel’s computer chimed.
He opened the HR report.
There were thirty-seven complaints involving Camila.
Thirty-seven.
Most had been closed without investigation.
I leaned closer.
“Who closed them?”
Samuel checked.
His expression hardened.
“Executive HR liaison.”
“Name?”
“Martin Keller.”
I knew Martin.
Senior vice president of Human Resources.
Alexander’s college friend.
A man who had toasted our wedding.
I looked at Alexander.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
This time his answer came instantly.
I believed him.
Samuel opened another file.
Then another.
A pattern emerged.
Complaints against senior executives disappearing.
Promotions redirected.
Expense approvals manipulated.
Employees pressured into silence.
And repeatedly, one name appeared near the administrative trail.
Martin Keller.
But there was something else.
Camila’s credentials appeared too.
She stepped toward the screen.
“I didn’t do that.”
Samuel looked skeptical.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t.”
“Then somebody used your access,” I said.
Camila’s arrogance finally vanished.
She looked frightened.
Alexander exhaled slowly.
“This is why I gave her the watch.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The watch wasn’t a romantic gift.”
“Then what was it?”
He looked at Camila.
She shook her head urgently.
“Alexander, don’t.”
I noticed something pass between them.
Not affection.
Fear.
Alexander lowered his voice.
“Three weeks ago, Camila came to me with evidence that someone inside Montalvo Global was stealing money.”
My anger faltered.
“She found the first irregular transactions,” he continued. “She agreed to help me identify who was behind them.”
“And the watch?”
Camila slowly removed it.
She placed it on Samuel’s desk.
Alexander picked it up.
Then pressed his thumbnail against the clasp.
A tiny panel opened.
Inside was something I had never known existed.
A miniature encrypted storage chip.
I stared at him.
“You hid evidence inside my mother-in-law’s birthday present?”
“It was the only object nobody would question Camila wearing.”
I couldn’t decide whether to slap him or admire the absurdity.
“You could have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“But?”
Alexander looked toward the office door.
“Someone already knew about your appointment before the board voted.”
My stomach tightened.
“That was confidential.”
“Exactly.”
He lowered his voice.
“And yesterday, someone accessed your personnel file, your travel schedule, and the security plan for your arrival.”
Samuel stopped typing.
I felt suddenly cold.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
Alexander handed me the watch.
“But whatever is on that chip may tell us.”
I looked down at the white ceramic bracelet.
Twenty minutes earlier, I had thought it represented the betrayal of my marriage.
Now it might represent something much larger.
Samuel inserted the encrypted chip into an isolated computer.
A folder appeared.
Inside were hundreds of documents.
And one video file.
The date was from two nights earlier.
Samuel opened it.
The grainy security footage showed Martin Keller entering Alexander’s office after midnight.
He wasn’t alone.
A second person followed him.
The figure turned toward the camera.
I stopped breathing.
Because I knew that face.
Everyone in the company did.
May you like
And if that person was involved, then the corruption inside Montalvo Global reached far higher than any of us had imagined.
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