Chapter 2 - The Freeze Heard Around Manhattan
Rachel Monroe did not waste time with pleasantries. As one of New York’s most formidable corporate litigators, Rachel wore her platinum-blonde hair in a severe chignon and carried an aura of polished steel. She sat across from Claire in the executive conference room, her leather-bound briefcase open, reviewing the initial digital forensic reports extracted by Priya.
'Let me get this straight,' Rachel said, tapping a red-inked pen against the table. 'Your ex-boyfriend, whom you dismissed four months ago, has been funding a three-hundred-guest society wedding using your personal black card and your company's credit standing, complete with forged electronic sponsorship credentials?'
'That is correct,' Claire said, standing by the window and watching the frantic pace of Wall Street traffic below. 'And as of right now, he believes he is untouchable because he assumes I am too busy managing our Q2 enterprise expansion to audit the auxiliary ledgers.'
'People like Ethan Cole operate on a very predictable psychological architecture,' Rachel noted, flipping a page. 'They confuse kindness with weakness, and success with stupidity. He thinks because you built an empire, you won't notice a few hundred thousand dollars leaking out of the foundation. He's wrong. Under New York Penal Law, grand larceny in the second degree applies to anything over fifty thousand. What he did with the corporate sponsorship pushes this firmly into federal wire fraud territory.'
'I want maximum exposure,' Claire said evenly, turning away from the window. 'Not just a quiet settlement behind closed doors. I want every single vendor, every guest, and every media outlet to understand exactly whose money paid for the champagne they're drinking.'
At 9:12 on Friday morning, exactly twenty-four hours before the wedding was set to commence in the Hudson Valley, Claire picked up her desk phone and dialed the fraud division of the black card issuer.
'Marcus,' Claire said, her voice steady and commanding. 'I am reviewing my statement. I need to report several unauthorized fraudulent charges originating from multiple luxury vendors in New York.'
'Of course, Ms. Bennett. Would you like to set a temporary spending limit or issue a replacement card?'
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'No,' Claire replied. 'Remove Ethan Cole as an authorized user immediately. Freeze every linked secondary card, revoke all auxiliary tokens, and flag every single transaction made on that account since April nineteenth. Effective immediately.'
'Done,' Marcus said. 'All auxiliary cards associated with Ethan Cole are now permanently deactivated. Any pending or authorized charges will be instantly declined.'
