Chapter 10: Following the Money
Chapter 10: Following the Money
With a fifty-million-dollar defamation suit officially in motion, Eleanor unlocked the most powerful weapon in the civil litigation arsenal: the discovery process.
Julian’s high-priced legal team from a rival white-shoe firm immediately filed a barrage of motions to quash Eleanor’s subpoenas. They argued that Vanguard Tech’s internal communications were strictly confidential and entirely irrelevant to a personal defamation spat.
But Eleanor was a master tactician. She successfully argued before the New York State Supreme Court judge—who had distinctly little sympathy for Julian after watching the viral video—that because Apex Strategy was paid using Vanguard Tech corporate funds to launch the smear campaign against her, the company’s internal servers were entirely fair game.
The judge agreed. He signed an order granting Eleanor broad access to Vanguard’s encrypted emails, financial ledgers, and executive slack channels.
It was a fatal blow to Julian’s defense.
It was 2:00 AM on a Friday, nearly two weeks after the wedding. The offices of Sterling, Vance & Hastings were dark, save for the golden glow spilling out of Eleanor’s corner office. She sat barefoot at her desk, empty coffee cups littering her credenza, her eyes burning as she scrolled through thousands of pages of subpoenaed digital documents.
Michael, her dedicated paralegal, was sitting on the sofa, aggressively typing on his laptop.
"It’s all just PR spin and panicked emails between Julian and his board," Michael yawned, rubbing his eyes. "We have the proof that he authorized the defamatory articles, Ms. Vance. It's a smoking gun for the civil suit. We have him dead to rights on the defamation charge. We can settle this tomorrow for eight figures."
"No," Eleanor murmured, leaning closer to her monitor. "Julian didn't panic when the process server dropped the lawsuit. He panicked when Richard Sterling told him who I was. He was terrified of me digging into this company. There’s something else here. Something he’s hiding."
"What are we looking for?" Michael asked, sitting up straighter.
"The champagne tower," Eleanor said softly, her eyes scanning a complex spreadsheet. "The flowers. The custom tuxedo. The two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar Cartier necklace he bought Chloe."
"What about them?"
"Julian’s personal assets are heavily tied up in Vanguard stock, which he can't liquidate before the IPO without triggering SEC violations," Eleanor explained, her legal mind working at light speed. "Yet he spent roughly four million dollars on a wedding. Where did the liquid cash come from?"
Michael fell silent, his fingers flying across his keyboard as he adjusted his search parameters. He cross-referenced Vanguard’s corporate expense accounts with the vendor receipts from the Plaza Hotel.
Ten minutes later, Michael gasped.
"Ms. Vance," Michael whispered, turning his laptop screen toward her. "You need to see this."
Eleanor walked over and looked at the screen. Buried deep within a nested folder of supposedly routine vendor payments for software licensing, Michael had found a series of wire transfers. Millions of dollars were being funneled out of Vanguard Tech’s primary operating accounts and wired to an offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands called Apex Holdings—a name entirely unrelated to the PR firm, but deceptively similar.
From Apex Holdings, the money was being quietly transferred into Julian’s private offshore checking accounts.
Eleanor traced the ledger. Julian hadn't just used corporate funds to pay for the smear campaign. He had used Vanguard Tech investor money to pay for the Plaza Hotel ballroom. He used it to buy the Baccarat crystal champagne tower. He used it to buy Chloe’s diamond necklace.
He had artificially inflated Vanguard Tech's pre-IPO numbers to attract massive institutional investors, while quietly siphoning off millions of dollars to fund his lavish, billionaire lifestyle.
Julian Pierce wasn't just a bully. He was embezzling millions.
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Eleanor stood up, a cold, triumphant thrill rushing through her veins. She had aimed for his pride, but she had accidentally struck his jugular.
"Michael," Eleanor said, her voice echoing in the quiet office. "Draft a secure email to the Securities and Exchange Commission. And prepare a dossier for the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Julian thought he was fighting a civil defamation case. We are about to turn this into a federal criminal indictment."
