Part 3 – The Audit Revealed Someone Had Been Stealing the Money Meant for Hazel’s Treatment
The forensic report landed early the next morning, and its findings changed what I thought had happened during Hazel’s final weeks. Ximena had built a dual-entry system inside Vance Global’s financial software, making the same medical requests look completely different depending on who was viewing them.
On Julian’s dashboard, seven emergency transfers for Hazel showed as Approved and Paid. On the portal I could access, those same requests appeared as Rejected, Over Allowance, or Under Review.
The hospital had received none of it.
Instead, auditors traced the transfers through vendor accounts tied to a shell company connected to Ximena.
Seven separate payments.
Seven times, money meant for my daughter had been diverted elsewhere.
I sat with the report for a long time, trying to reconcile it with the man I’d spent three years resenting. Julian had apparently approved several of Hazel’s medical expenses, but that didn’t make him innocent.
He’d built the system that let Ximena stand between a mother and her sick child.
He’d ignored seventeen calls.
He’d told me to stop embarrassing him when I showed up at his office begging for help.
Most of all, he’d never bothered to check whether the treatment he supposedly authorized had actually reached his daughter.
Julian hadn’t personally diverted Hazel’s money.
He’d simply made caring about what happened next someone else’s job.
I forwarded him the full audit without explanation.
He called ten minutes later.
“Genevieve, did you send this?”
“Yes.”
His breathing turned uneven.
“I approved those payments.”
“I know.”
“The hospital never received them?”
“No.”
Silence, for several seconds.
Then his voice changed.
“Ximena stole Hazel’s medical money?”
The rage that followed didn’t impress me. I heard something crash in his office while Julian shouted that he’d destroy Ximena and make her pay for what she’d done.
“No.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“You’re going to preserve every record and let the authorities handle it.”
“She stole from my daughter!”
“And while she was doing it, your daughter’s mother called you seventeen times.”
That silenced him.
“You thought I was exaggerating because believing that was easier than answering the phone.”
His voice dropped.
“I thought Ximena was handling everything.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Vance Global’s legal department turned the records over for investigation. Auditors soon discovered Hazel’s medical funds weren’t the only money missing; Ximena had allegedly been manipulating vendor payments, travel accounts, and other corporate expenses for years.
Julian showed up at my apartment several days later.
He looked nothing like the polished executive who’d once left me waiting five hours in his lobby. He was carrying printed phone records showing every call, email, and medical notification he’d ignored during Hazel’s final crisis.
“I saw all of them afterward.”
I looked at the seventeen unanswered calls highlighted across the pages.
“I thought you were trying to get my attention.”
“I was.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Not for me. For Hazel.”
Julian lowered his head.
“I should have gone to the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“I should have checked the payments.”
“Yes.”
“I should have listened to you.”
“Yes.”
Then he asked the question I knew was coming.
“Can you forgive me?”
I looked toward Hazel’s urn on the windowsill.
“My forgiveness cannot give her those days back.”
Julian covered his face, but I felt no satisfaction watching him finally understand what his indifference had cost. Hazel’s death wasn’t something I could turn into a weapon just because I now had the financial power to hurt him.
“I want the divorce, Julian.”
“I can fix this.”
“No. You can cooperate with the investigation, and you can sign the papers.”
He refused.
At first, anyway.
But while Julian was trying to save our marriage, the forensic review I’d authorized kept uncovering problems that went far beyond Ximena’s theft. Vance Global’s pending merger had undisclosed liabilities, questionable accounting practices, and transactions Sterling Capital couldn’t responsibly approve without further investigation.
I didn’t manufacture any of it.
I just refused to hide what the auditors found.
That decision pulled another member of the Vance family into the conflict.
Harrison Vance, Julian’s grandfather and the family patriarch, asked for a private meeting with me.
When I arrived at his estate, he skipped the pleasantries.
“What do you want, Genevieve?”
“My divorce.”
“And my grandson’s company?”
“If it can survive an honest audit, it will survive.”
The old man studied me.
Then he brought up my father.
That was when I realized Harrison knew far more about the Sterling Trust than Julian ever had.
But before the meeting ended, he told me something I hadn’t expected.
My father had apparently contacted Harrison shortly before he died.
And whatever the two men discussed had been specifically about Hazel.
Suddenly I needed to know exactly what my father had learned about the Vance family before I ever made that call to Raymond.
