Chapter 4 - The Boardroom Audit
Forty-eight hours later, the grand boardroom on the tenth floor of Holloway Residential Partners looked like a war room.
The sixty-foot mahogany conference table was covered in stacks of blue-backed financial audits, legal briefs, and printouts of encrypted email exchanges pulled from Rebecca Sloan’s corporate account.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the Grand River flowed quietly under the autumn sun, reflecting the shimmering steel of the city's expanding skyline—a skyline my mother’s family had helped build half a century ago.
Sitting around the table were seven members of the executive board, three forensic accountants from Deloitte, Marion Pierce, and David Chen.
I sat at the head of the table in the leather executive chair that Grant had occupied for a decade. I wore a tailored dark navy suit, my hair pulled back into a sleek, professional knot. On the table in front of me rested my father’s brass clock key, sitting right next to the green stock certificate from 1989.
Grant sat three seats down on the left side of the table. He was no longer in his hospital gown. He wore a simple gray suit without a tie, his face gaunt, dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes. Beside him sat his personal defense attorney, a weary-looking man named Marcus Vance (no relation to my father), who spent most of his time reading through our filings with an expression of total resignation.
"Let the record reflect," Marion Pierce began, her voice echoing clearly off the glass walls, "that this special emergency meeting of the Board of Directors of Holloway Residential Partners is called to order at nine-fifteen AM on Monday, October 10th."
She turned her eyes toward Grant.
"Item one on the agenda," Marion continued, "is the formal presentation of the forensic audit conducted on Apex Consulting LLC and its subsidiary accounts."
A senior forensic accountant stood up, pressing a button on a remote control. A large digital screen at the front of the room lit up, displaying a complex flow chart of wire transfers.
"Over the past twenty-four months," the accountant explained, "approximately $1.8 million was transferred from Holloway Residential operating accounts into Apex Consulting. These funds were subsequently routed through three personal accounts belonging to Mr. Tyler Sloan—Ms. Rebecca Sloan’s brother—before being converted into offshore real estate holdings in Grand Cayman."
The room was deathly quiet. Two board members shook their heads in disgust.
"Furthermore," the accountant added, "our team uncovered a secondary ledger created in 2021. This ledger demonstrates that Mr. Grant Holloway used $3.2 million in corporate debt facilities—secured by the company’s core real estate assets—to settle private gambling debts accumulated at the Windsor Casino network."
Grant buried his head in his hands.
His attorney, Marcus, leaned over and whispered fiercely into Grant’s ear: "Don't say a word. Let me handle this."
Marcus stood up, adjusting his glasses. "Members of the board, Mrs. Holloway... my client acknowledges that administrative errors were made during a period of high corporate expansion. However, Mr. Holloway acted under the genuine belief that he possessed full authorization from the primary trust officers—"
"Marcus," I interrupted, setting my pen down on the table. "Stop."
The attorney paused, looking at me.
"Grant didn't make administrative errors," I said, my voice smooth, calm, and completely devoid of anger. "Grant committed corporate fraud. He commingled personal debts with corporate liabilities, he bribed a public-works consultant to secure the Lake Michigan zoning permits, and he attempted to dilute my mother's forty-nine percent stock holding through fraudulent board resolutions that bore a forged copy of my signature from 2022."
I slid a thin folder across the table to Grant’s attorney.
"That is a report from a certified forensic handwriting expert," I said. "The signature on the 2022 Equity Dilution Authorization was not written by me. It was traced from my 2015 tax return."
Grant lifted his head from his hands, looking across the table at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. "Natalie... please. I was trying to save the company from bankruptcy after the 2020 market crash. I did it for us! I did it for Eli’s future!"
"You didn't do it for Eli, Grant," I said softly. "You did it for your own pride. You couldn't bear the thought of telling the city that the great Grant Holloway was losing money. You couldn't bear the thought of asking your wife—the woman you thought was helpless—for help."
I turned to the board members.
"As the forty-nine percent voting owner of this firm, combined with the fifteen percent proxy vote granted to me this morning by the City Infrastructure Development Trust," I announced, "I move for the immediate, permanent removal of Grant Holloway from all executive positions within Holloway Residential Partners, effective at ten o'clock AM."
"Seconded," one of the senior board members said instantly.
"All those in favor?" Marion asked.
Six hands went up around the table. Grant’s hands remained flat on the polished mahogany.
"The motion carries," Marion declared. "Item two: The formal appointment of Natalie Vance as Interim Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the Vance-Holloway Restructuring Group."
"Seconded," another board member called out.
The hands went up again.
Grant sat motionless as his entire career, his reputation, and his company were stripped away from him in less than fifteen minutes.
He looked at me, a hollow, desperate empty shell of the man who had kissed my forehead on Saturday morning and told me not to plan dinner around him.
"What about the federal prosecutor?" Grant’s lawyer asked quietly.
"Mrs. Vance has already executed a full cooperation agreement with the United States Attorney," David Chen answered from my right. "The Justice Department has agreed to grant corporate immunity to Holloway Residential Partners as an entity, provided that all evidence regarding Wade Fenwick, Rebecca Sloan, and Grant Holloway is handed over by noon."
Grant let out a small, broken sob. He pulled his hands back, resting them on his knees, staring down at his polished leather shoes.
"Natalie," Grant whispered, his voice trembling so hard he could barely articulate the words. "What am I supposed to do now?"
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I stood up from the head of the table, picking up my father’s brass clock key and holding it tightly in my palm.
"You're going to hire a very good criminal defense attorney, Grant," I said, stepping past his chair toward the glass doors of the boardroom. "And then you're going to explain to a judge why you thought my silence was weakness."
