The Contract That Was Never Meant to Reach the CEO
Chapter 3
Ethan followed Maya to a small diner two blocks away.
She sat across from him with a coffee she barely touched.
“You knew who I was,” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“My father worked for your company.”
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Reed.”
Ethan remembered.
Thomas Reed had been a senior finance analyst who resigned eighteen months earlier.
Officially, he had left for health reasons.
“Your father quit?”
Maya nodded.
“He was fired.”
“Why?”
“He discovered the duplicate accounts.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What did he find?”
Maya pulled a flash drive from her bag.
“Everything I have.”
Ethan didn’t touch it.
“Why give this to me?”
“Because my father died believing you knew.”
Ethan’s face tightened.
“He thought I knew?”
“He said there was no way a company this large could be manipulated without the CEO seeing something.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Maya’s voice softened.
“That’s why he was angry.”
She pushed the drive toward him.
“He believed someone was keeping the truth away from you.”
Ethan stared at it.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Your father must have had a theory.”
“He did.”
“Who?”
Maya looked around the diner.
Then whispered:
“Julian Price.”
Ethan’s stomach dropped.
Julian was Cole Automotive’s chief financial officer.
His oldest executive.
His most trusted adviser.
The man who had worked beside Ethan’s father before Ethan inherited the business.
“That’s impossible.”
Maya shook her head.
“That’s what my father said at first.”
Ethan remembered the ownership contract.
“Who prepared that document?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Julian could.”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood.
“I need to go back.”
Maya grabbed his sleeve.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if Julian knows you suspect him, he’ll destroy everything.”
Ethan sat again.
“What exactly is he doing?”
Maya opened her phone.
She showed him photographs of contracts.
Customers had been charged for services they never requested.
Trade-in values had been altered.
Employee bonuses had been withheld.
And money had been routed through companies Ethan didn’t recognize.
But one document was different.
A list of dealership properties.
Next to several locations were handwritten numbers.
Ethan recognized the pattern.
These weren’t sales projections.
They were estimated liquidation values.
Someone was preparing to sell the dealerships.
“Why?”
Maya shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan looked at the final page.
One property had been marked in red.
Cole Motors East.
Underneath it was a date.
Friday.
“What’s Friday?”
Maya hesitated.
“An emergency board meeting.”
Ethan looked up.
“Who called it?”
“Julian.”
“And what’s on the agenda?”
Maya’s expression changed.
“Your removal.”
Silence.
Ethan stared at the page.
His own company was preparing to remove him.
But there was one detail he couldn’t understand.
“If Julian wants the company, why would he use a fake contract?”
Maya looked at him.
“Because he doesn’t want to own the company.”
“What does he want?”
She answered quietly.
“The land.”
