Chapter 2 - The Audit of Blood
I didn't throw them out that night.
Not because I had mercy, but because I needed every single document, every bank statement, every receipt, and every title signed, sealed, and delivered before they realized what was hit them. If I kicked them into the street right then, they would run to lawyers, hide assets, or try to transfer deeds.
I needed to bleed them dry, legally and financially, the exact same way they had bled my wife and son emotionally for half a decade.
By midnight, the guests had been abruptly ordered to leave. I walked into the grand dining room, grabbed the microphone the party host had been using, and announced: "The party is over. The host is a fraud. Leave my house immediately." The panic and humiliation had been glorious. Gertrude had fainted onto a velvet couch, while Prudence locked herself in the master suite, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Now, at three in the morning, the mansion was deadly quiet.
I sat at the massive mahogany desk in the home office. Beside me sat Sarah and Jamie.
I had personally carried Jamie up to a guest suite on the second floor, wrapped him in warm, clean blankets, and ordered a late-night delivery of hot soup, fresh bread, and roast chicken. Seeing my son eat clean, warm food until his little stomach was full, then fall asleep in a soft bed holding my hand, had nearly broken my heart in two.
Sarah sat beside me, dressed in one of my oversized flannel shirts. Her hands were wrapped around a mug of hot tea. For the first time in five years, she looked safe.
"Show me everything, Sarah," I said gently.
She reached into her small canvas bag—the only thing she owned—and pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook.
"I kept track," she whispered, pushing it across the desk toward me. "Every month when you called, your mother would stand in the doorway of the back room with her phone on speaker, making sure I didn't say anything wrong. If I complained, she told me she would call the authorities and tell them I was abusing Jamie, and that with you away, they would take him into state care."
My blood ran cold. "She threatened to take Jamie?"
"Yes," Sarah wept silently. "I was terrified, David. I had no money, no phone of my own, no car. My parents passed away while you were in Saudi. I had nowhere to go. She told me if I tried to leave the property, she would report me for vagrancy and child neglect. So I stayed. I worked. I took care of Jamie in the back, and I wrote down every dollar she bragged about spending."
I opened the notebook.
Sarah’s neat, careful handwriting filled dozens of pages.
March 2022: David sent $1,800. Gertrude bought a Gucci tote bag ($1,200). Gave Sarah $50 for groceries for Jamie.August 2023: David sent $2,500 bonus. Prudence took a weekend trip to Miami ($2,100). Gave Sarah leftover catering bread.November 2024: David sent $5,000 for Jamie’s school tuition. Gertrude paid off her personal credit card. Jamie was not enrolled in school.
Five years.
Sixty months.
Over $120,000 sent directly to Gertrude’s bank account for "family expenses and Sarah's allowance." On top of that, I had wired an additional $350,000 over five years directly into a joint account for the completion of the mansion's construction and interior design.
I pulled up my mobile banking app on my phone and logged into the joint construction account.
Balance: $412.00.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath.
I picked up my phone and dialed a number I had saved three years ago—a man I had worked with on a major industrial piping contract in Riyadh, a former federal prosecutor who now ran one of the most ruthless forensic accounting and private investigation firms in the state.
"Mark?" I said when the line picked up on the third ring. "It's David Ward."
"David? My god, man, when did you get back from the Kingdom?" Mark’s sharp, professional voice came through the speaker.
"I got back tonight," I said, staring at the golden light reflecting off the mahogany desk. "I need you to pull every bank record, every property title, every credit card statement, and every tax filing associated with Gertrude Ward and Prudence Ward over the last five years."
There was a short pause on the line. "Your mother and sister?"
"Yes."
"What's the play, David?"
"I want fraud charges. I want embezzlement. I want grand larceny. And I want an immediate freeze on every single asset carrying my name or funded by my transfers," I said, my voice as level as an iron beam. "I want them stripped until they don't even own the clothes on their backs."
Mark didn't hesitate. "Send me the bank account details you have. I'll have a team of forensic auditors on it by seven in the morning. By noon, I'll have enough paper to sink a battleship."
"Thank you, Mark."
I hung up the phone and looked at Sarah. She was staring at me, her wide eyes filled with a mixture of awe and residual fear.
May you like
"David," she whispered, reaching out to cover my hand with hers. "What are we going to do about them living here?"
"They aren't living here anymore, Sarah," I said, kissing her knuckles. "Tomorrow morning, the locks are being changed. And the day after that, they go to work."
