Chapter 5 - The Frame Job
I took the drive from Camila’s small hand. It felt heavy, cold, and immensely powerful.
We left Rosa’s apartment immediately and returned to my car. Marcus plugged the encrypted drive into his secure mobile terminal. It took him twenty minutes to bypass the basic security protocol on the drive, but when the files decrypted, the full scope of the nightmare revealed itself.
Julian Vance was broke. His venture capital firm was a hollow shell, built on predatory loans from offshore cartels and illegal gambling syndicates. He owed over $6 million to international creditors, and he had leveraged Emily to get to my estate's assets.
Together, they had constructed a plan to completely destroy me. The $80,000 payroll theft was just pocket change for them—a trial run. The $250,000 charity theft was designed to create a trail of corruption that pointed directly to me as the trustee.
And the ultimate prize? The $5 million bridge loan secured by my mansion, coupled with the foundation authorization form Emily had tried to hand me earlier. Once I signed that form, they planned to trigger an anonymous tip to the IRS and Federal Law Enforcement, alleging that I was laundering cartel money through my employee payroll and charity foundation.
With me arrested and my assets frozen, Emily would step in as sole trustee, take control of the family estate, pay off Julian’s debts, and flee the country with the remaining $35 million.
"They're not just trying to steal from you, Christian," Marcus said, staring at the screen in disbelief. "They are sending you to federal prison for the rest of your life."
Before I could even process the horror of what I was reading, my phone buzzed violently on the dashboard. It was a notification from my estate’s smart-security system.
Multiple black SUVs had just pulled into my driveway in Beverly Hills.
I opened the live security camera feed on my phone. Heavy-set men in suits were stepping out of the vehicles alongside local police officers and federal agents carrying search warrants.
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Emily stood on the front porch of my mansion, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, pointing toward my private study as the agents poured through the front doors.
She had executed the trap early.
