Chapter 5 - The Confrontation
At 2:00 PM, the double glass doors of the Apex Global reception suite swung open.
Kyle Reed walked in.
He looked terrible. The confident, muscular thirty-something influencer who used to smirk for the camera was gone. In his place stood a forty-year-old man wearing a faded designer suit that hung loosely on his shoulders. Hair thinning, dark circles under his eyes, holding a beat-up leather briefcase with white-knuckled desperation.
Behind him walked his brother Brad, looking equally worn down, wearing a cheap polo shirt and chewing nervously on his thumbnail.
They had been summoned by Lumina's corporate legal team to face an emergency financial review. They believed they were meeting with a generic corporate bean-counter who would help them smooth over their "accounting discrepancies."
"We have a two o'clock with Marcus Thorne," Kyle told the receptionist, trying to project his old alpha-male authority and failing completely.
"Mr. Reed," the receptionist said politely. "Vice President Vance will see you now in Executive Suite A."
Kyle snorted softly, turning to Brad. "Vice President Vance? Sounds like some ancient corporate stiff. Let's just give her the doctored spreadsheets from 2024 and get the hell out of here so we can grab a drink."
They walked down the carpeted hallway and pushed open the heavy oak door of Executive Suite A.
The room was vast, framed by massive floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sparkling expanse of Puget Sound.
Standing behind the massive dark mahogany desk was a tall, elegant woman in a tailored emerald-green silk blouse, dark trousers, and designer glasses. Her dark hair fell in immaculate curls around her shoulders, and a multi-million-dollar city skyline stretched out behind her.
Kyle adjusted his tie, putting on a slick, practiced fake smile as he stepped forward, extending his hand.
"Ms. Vance? I'm Kyle Reed, CEO of The Prank Dynasty LLC. My team and I are here to clear up a few minor misunderstandings regarding our corporate distribution ledger—"
He stopped dead in his tracks.
The smile vanished from his face as if it had been struck by an iron rod.
I took off my glasses, laid them softly on top of a thick, leather-bound audit report, and looked directly into his eyes.
"Hello, Kyle," I said calmly.
Kyle’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. His skin turned a sickly, pale yellow under the fluorescent lights. His eyes darted frantically from my dark hair to my face, to my expensive tailored clothes, and back to my eyes.
"L-Lena?" he choked out, his voice dropping an octave into pure, unadulterated shock. "Lena?!"
Brad, standing behind him, dropped his briefcase onto the hardwood floor with a deafening thud. "Holy crap... Kyle... is that...?"
"My name is Elena Vance," I said, my voice smooth, steady, and entirely devoid of heat. "I am the Vice President of Forensic Accounting at Apex Global Risk."
Kyle took a staggering step backward, his hand flying to the edge of the conference table to steady himself. "You... you've been here? In Seattle?! I spent three years searching for you! I hired detectives! You stole forty-five grand from our account!"
"I took exactly fifty percent of our shared liquid marital assets," I corrected him mildly, resting my hands comfortably on my desk. "A fact your divorce lawyer would have explained to you, had you ever managed to serve me with papers. But since you were too busy making YouTube videos blaming 'anti-marriage influencers' for your own cruelty, you never bothered to hire a proper legal team."
"Lena, please—" Kyle stammered, stepping forward, his hands raised in a desperate, pleading gesture. "Babe, you don't understand! That video... it was just a joke! It was a mistake! We were young! I’ve missed you every single day! I lost the house, Lena! I lost the channel! Everything went to hell after you walked away!"
I looked at him—this broken, pathetic man who had once thought my panic was funny enough to film for strangers.
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I felt no hatred for him. I felt no anger. I felt only the supreme satisfaction of an auditor closing an account that had remained unbalanced for far too long.
"I didn't walk away, Kyle," I said softly. "You drove away."
