Richard found out.
Elena, his ambitious executive, was helping Richard cover up the embezzlement to protect the stock price.
And when David threatened to expose the whole house of cards, they had him silenced.
"You're lying," I snarled, stepping around the desk.
"I don't need your buyout, Richard. I still hold fifty-one percent of the voting rights. I want full access to the corporate servers. Right now."
Richard let out a long, heavy sigh, shaking his head as if I were a disappointed child.
"You're making a mistake, Marcus. Some foundations need to crack before you can build. You dig into this, you're going to destroy David's memory."
"Give me the server access," I demanded, ignoring his cryptic threat.
Richard stared at me for a long, agonizing moment.
Then, surprisingly, he stepped back and gestured toward David's old computer terminal sitting quietly in the corner of the room.
"Go ahead," Richard said smoothly. "Knock yourself out, old man. You won't find a damn thing. The accounts were wiped five years ago."
He turned toward the door, not looking back.
"Elena, come with me. We have a board meeting."
Elena hesitated, glancing at me with a look of desperate, unspoken terror, before she hurried past me, the red folder still clutched tightly in her arms.
The heavy door clicked shut behind them.
I was alone.
I didn't go to the computer terminal.
Instead, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the brass key that had been mailed to me.
I walked around to the heavy leather executive chair, dropped to my knees, and crawled under the massive oak desk.
David and I had designed these desks ourselves.
I knew exactly where the hidden floor safe was located, concealed beneath a false panel in the heavy wooden base.
I pried the panel away with my fingers, revealing a small, steel lockbox bolted directly into the floor.
My hands shook violently as I inserted the brass key into the lock.
It turned with a heavy, satisfying click.
I pulled the steel door open.
Inside the dark cavity lay two items.
A small, black leather ledger.
And a cheap, plastic prepaid burner phone.
I grabbed both items and pulled myself out from under the desk, sitting heavily in David's old chair.
The faint, lingering smell of his cologne seemed to rise from the leather cushions, threatening to break my composure.
I opened the ledger.
The pages were filled with David's frantic, aggressive handwriting.
Rows and rows of offshore account numbers, massive wire transfers, and dates.
Millions of dollars moved in secret.
My heart broke right there in the silence of the office.
Richard was right.
David had been stealing.
My son, the boy I had raised to be an honest, brilliant architect, had turned into a corporate thief.
I closed my eyes, fighting back the burning tears.
But I needed to know everything.
I needed to know how deep the corruption went.
I picked up the plastic burner phone.
The screen was cracked, but when I pressed the power button, a low battery icon flashed on the screen.
It was dead.
I frantically searched the desk drawers until I found an old, frayed charging cable.
I plugged the cable into the computer terminal and attached the other end to the phone.
The screen flickered to life, the Apple logo glowing in the dim room.
I didn't know the passcode.
I stared at the keypad, my mind racing.
What would David use?
I typed in my own birthday. Incorrect.
I typed in the day the company went public. Incorrect.
Then, with trembling fingers, I typed in the date his mother died.
The phone unlocked with a soft click.
I immediately opened the file manager.