Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT OF THE BOARD VOTE
The interview lasted six hours and contained none of the drama television
taught people to expect. Investigators asked the same questions from different
angles, requested precise distinctions between what Mariana knew and what she
inferred, and repeatedly returned to the chain of custody for each document.
Mariana appreciated the discipline. She had spent her career telling clients
that facts became vulnerable when people decorated them with certainty they
had not earned, so she resisted every temptation to describe Sebastian or
Arthur in ways the records could not prove.
She explained the duplicate vendor number, the conflicting serial numbers, the
Mexico transactions, the ownership links, and the memo found in Eleanor’s
files. She also disclosed the circumstances surrounding the anonymous messages
and made clear that she did not know who sent them.
When the interview ended, one investigator told her only that the matter was
being taken seriously. There was no promise of arrest, no assurance of
outcome, just the sober reality that institutions moved slower than fear.
Back at Aurelia, the board scheduled an emergency vote to determine whether
Sebastian could return as chief executive. The independent committee’s
preliminary findings had identified undisclosed related-party transactions,
weaknesses in internal controls, and serious questions regarding charitable
equipment records.
Sebastian demanded permission to address the directors in person. According to
board counsel, he blamed Victor, claimed Arthur had handled legacy supplier
structures, and insisted Mariana had accessed records out of revenge after
their marriage deteriorated. Then Victor spoke.
He admitted signing improper accounting adjustments but produced emails
showing Sebastian directing him to meet quarterly targets by shifting certain
foreign costs and delaying recognition of problems until after the planned
IPO.
Arthur was not a board member, yet his name appeared repeatedly in
correspondence as the person Sebastian consulted whenever the foreign
structure became difficult to explain. The vote removed Sebastian as CEO
pending final investigation.
For Mariana, the news brought no celebration. She sat alone in Maya’s guest
room and remembered the night Sebastian launched Aurelia from their kitchen
table, when he had been thirty-one, exhausted, hopeful, and genuinely thrilled
that a prototype sensor finally worked. She had loved that man. Maybe part of
him had been real.
But people were not only the best version they once showed. They were also the
choices they repeated when power gave them room to choose.
That same evening, Sebastian appeared at the hotel where Eleanor was staying.
He did not know her room number, but he waited in the lobby for nearly an hour
until security asked him to leave.
Before he went, he sent his mother a message. “Dad is destroying me and
Mariana is helping him. If you still love your son, tell the truth.” Eleanor
read it with tears in her eyes. “What truth does he want?” Mariana asked.
“The truth where he is still a child,” Eleanor said. “The truth where
everything was done to him and nothing was done by him.”
The answer revealed a sorrow deeper than anger. Eleanor could admit Arthur
shaped Sebastian without pretending Sebastian had no responsibility for what
he became.
Renata faced the same reckoning. She voluntarily provided financial records
related to her consulting entity and learned she might face civil or legal
consequences depending on what investigators concluded about her knowledge.
Daniel told her he would not lie for her, and Renata said she did not want him
to. It was the first honest exchange Mariana had witnessed between them since
the restaurant.
Three days later, Arthur’s attorneys changed tactics. Rather than portraying
Eleanor as confused, they accused Mariana of manipulating an older woman
during a vulnerable period to gain leverage in divorce negotiations. The claim
enraged Mariana, but Eleanor surprised everyone by asking to make a statement
through her own counsel. She did not discuss unproven financial allegations.
She spoke only about herself.
Eleanor described the scar near her eyebrow, the broken wrist, years of
financial control, and the fear that had trained her to measure every sentence
before speaking. She also stated that Mariana did not persuade her to leave;
Mariana simply made it possible for her to act on a decision she had postponed
for years.
The statement never became a spectacle. It was filed where necessary, shared
with appropriate parties, and allowed to exist as evidence rather than
entertainment. Arthur stopped calling her after that. Then the anonymous
source finally revealed himself.
It was Leo Martinez, a former Aurelia compliance analyst who had left the
company eight months earlier after raising concerns about the Mexico vendor
network. He contacted Maya through counsel and admitted sending the ledger
photograph, hotel note, and charity-event image.
Leo had tried reporting the issues internally, but his concerns were minimized
and his position was later eliminated during a restructuring. He had
recognized Mariana’s name in internal access logs when she began tracing
invoices and concluded she might be the only person close enough to Sebastian
to understand the pattern.
Mariana was furious that he had contacted her secretly and frightened her at
the hotel. Leo apologized, admitting that desperation had made him reckless.
Yet his records filled a critical gap. He possessed emails showing compliance
concerns were routed to Sebastian months before the IPO preparation
accelerated, undermining any claim that the chief executive first learned of
the problems during Mariana’s investigation.
Leo also had a copy of a draft internal report titled PROJECT MERIDIAN. The
report referenced foreign supplier structures outside Mexico, including
entities in three additional countries. The forty-six million pesos were only
one corridor in the maze.
That night, Mariana, Eleanor, Renata, Daniel, Maya, and Leo sat around a long
conference table while the city darkened outside. No one felt victorious. They
were looking at the architecture of a system that had survived because each
person saw only one room. Mariana closed the Meridian report and looked at
Eleanor. “Did Arthur ever use that name?” Eleanor’s face changed. “Yes,” she
said slowly. “Once. Years ago.” Everyone waited. “He said Meridian was the
reason our family would never have to worry about money again.” The room fell
May you like
silent. Then Eleanor added the detail none of them expected. “Sebastian was
sixteen when he said it.”
