The Company Demanded Everything From Me, So I Let It Burn Chapter 10

The Company Demanded Everything From Me, So I Let It Burn Chapter 10

The investigator frowned.

“The other seven Vantage employees who attended gave us the same account when we interviewed them separately. Are you saying all seven of them lied?”

“What reason would all seven of them have to do that?”

I could see the doubt on his face. I took a breath, told him exactly what had happened that day, and

handed over the recording I’d made.

The longer he listened, the darker his expression became.

I waited until the recording ended, then said,

“There’s one more thing. By the day of the bid, Vantage had reassigned me to janitorial work. What company ignores its project team and sends the janitor to submit a major corporate bid?”

Since everything was already out in the open, I told him what else had happened at Vantage over the previous few weeks.

When he heard that Vanessa had let an employee with only three months at the company interfere in management decisions, his eyebrows shot up.

The investigator finally snapped.

“That’s unbelievable. A company this size handed that kind of authority to someone who’d been there three months? What did they think this was, a college club?”

When I explained that Evan had invented a company policy to confiscate my scratch-off winnings,

the investigator’s face hardened.

“Absolutely not. Vantage has never had a policy like that. He made it up.”

“And the company cannot simply seize an employee’s lawful personal property. Mr. Reed, give us some time. We’ll get to the bottom of this and give you a proper explanation.”

I went home and waited.

Three days later, the compliance team called to tell me the investigation was finished.

They re-interviewed everyone who had attended the bid. Once the recording came out, the matching stories and witness statements fell apart almost immediately.

In the end, they had no choice but to admit what they’d done.

Then the investigators found something else. When they traced the scratch-off incident, they discovered the $500 had never appeared in Vantage’s accounts.

The money Evan had so self-righteously claimed to be confiscating for the company had never

gone to the company at all. It had gone straight into his personal account.

Worse, investigators found multiple customer payments in that same account, money that should

have gone to Vantage.

It was embezzlement. Plain and simple.

Altogether, Evan had taken nearly $90,000.

He’d been at Vantage for only three months.

The news blew through the company.

“Holy shit. I knew there was something off about that pretty-boy act. Ninety grand in three months? He might as well have emptied the company bank account.”

“And he only got away with it because someone upstairs kept protecting him. Looks like neither of

them is walking away clean now.’

My coworkers weren’t wrong. Evan had only been able to steal that much because Vanessa backed

him and gave him access and authority no ordinary staff accountant should ever have had.

Once the truth came out, both of them faced lawsuits from Vantage and the end of their careers.

Vantage sued for the losses they’d caused and sought nearly $2 million in total damages.

Neither of them had anything close to that kind of money.

At one point during all of this, Vanessa came to see me.

“Ethan, I didn’t know what Evan was doing. How is any of that my fault?”

“The company wants all this money from me. Where am I supposed to get it? This is Evan’s fault. That bastard was doing all of this behind my back!”

She went on and on about how innocent she was, how Evan had fooled her, how she’d been dragged into the whole mess.

She cursed him with a fury that would have been almost funny if it weren’t so ugly. Evan was already under investigation and facing an even larger claim than she was, yet every trace of the protection she’d once shown him had vanished.

There was nothing left but hatred. From the sound of it, she wanted to tear him apart herself.

Finally, exhausted and worn down, Vanessa admitted why she’d really come.

“…I know you own five percent of Vantage. That’s worth several million dollars. Could you lend me some of it?”

“If I can’t pay what the company is demanding, this could become a criminal case. I could go to prison. After everything we’ve been to each other, you’re not really going to stand there and let that happen, are you?”

I let her finish before I answered.

“First, you keep saying you’re innocent and everything was Evan’s fault. Maybe reread your own employment agreement and your responsibilities as CEO. You abused your authority for him. That’s a failure of duty.”

“Second, what do my shares have to do with you? Stop counting money that isn’t yours. We’re strangers now. If you can ask me for millions with a straight face, you’d probably have better luck

with a GoFundMe.”

It was almost funny. We’d already ended our relationship, and she still had the nerve to ask me to

cover a massive claim for her. Some people really had no shame.

I stopped caring whether Vanessa or Evan ended up in prison. The only thing I cared about was

when I could finally cash out my shares.

The moment the hold was lifted, I sold every share and decided to take a long vacation. For once, I

was going to rest.

As for work? Someone else could have it.