Chapter 6 - The Unraveling
"You can't do this!" Megan screamed, lunging toward me.
Briggs immediately stepped between us, his massive shoulder easily blocking her path.
"Don't touch me!" Megan spat at the guard, then turned her bloodshot, furious eyes back onto me. "You don't own this building, Chloe! Mark set up this lease through a corporate management firm! I pay rent!"
"No, Megan," Marcus said, stepping forward with a crisp, leather-bound folder. "You *don't* pay rent. The eighty-five-thousand-dollar quarterly lease payment due on November first bounced. Twice. And the entity you lease from is Apex Commercial Real Estate LLC. Apex is a subsidiary of Vance-Sterling Holdings, of which Chloe is the sole managing trustee."
Megan blinked rapidly, her face turning an alarming shade of gray beneath her heavy makeup. "What? No... Mark said..."
"Mark doesn't know anything," I said coldly. "Because Mark never bothered to read the legal disclosures of the trust he assumed was his personal ATM. Every single rack of clothing in that store, every light fixture, every hanger was purchased using funds drawn from a corporate line of credit underwritten by *my* assets."
The three employees behind Megan were now staring at her in horror. One of them, a college student named Jessica, quietly took off her staff lanyard, placed it on the pavement, and turned around to walk away.
"Jessica, get back here!" Megan ordered frantically. "Don't you dare leave!"
"Miss Peterson," Marcus continued with devastating calm, "at 11:30 PM last night, our forensic accountant uncovered that you transferred eighty-two thousand dollars from the store’s merchant account directly into your personal checking over the last ninety days. You also forged Mrs. Peterson’s signature on two capital requests."
"That was for marketing!" Megan lied, her voice cracking as sweat began to ruin her foundation. "I needed to promote the brand!"
"That is criminal fraud," Marcus replied smoothly. "A formal criminal referral has been submitted to the Cook County State's Attorney's Financial Crimes Division as of forty-five minutes ago. In addition, the commercial line of credit at Chase has been frozen. Your personal accounts tied to that guarantor line have also been placed on administrative hold pending the resolution of the default."
Megan reached into her purse with shaking, manicured hands. She pulled out her phone and frantically opened her banking app.
I watched her face crumble as the screen reflected the truth: *Account Balance: $0.00 (Restricted).*
"No... no, no, no," she whimpered, tapping the screen wildly. "This is a mistake! My card! How am I supposed to pay my rent? How am I supposed to pay for my car?"
"That's not my problem, Megan," I said, taking one step closer to her so she could hear every single syllable over the mounting murmur of the crowd. "Last night, you struck my five-year-old daughter across the face because she touched a tablecloth. You thought your family was invincible because you had my husband wrapped around your little finger. You thought I would just sit in the cold and take it."
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"Chloe, please," Megan suddenly pleaded, tears finally spilling over her mascara. "We're family! You can't ruin me like this! Think of Mark! Think of Mom and Dad!"
"I am thinking of them," I whispered. "And they're next."
