The executives searched current databases. Nothing.
They searched digital backups. Nothing.
Finally, someone remembered the old archive.
Emma was asked to find the original documents. She spent six hours searching through boxes while executives waited impatiently upstairs. Near midnight, she found a folder containing the original transaction records.
The missing $60 million had not disappeared: it had been transferred according to an agreement signed eighteen years earlier. And the person who had designed the structure of that agreement was Daniel Carter—Emma's father.
The discovery saved Sterling & Vale from a legal disaster. But Richard didn't thank her. Instead, he accused the archive department of creating unnecessary complications.
Emma said nothing. She placed the original document on his desk and returned downstairs.
That night, for the first time in twelve years, Emma took the old envelope out of her drawer. She stared at her father's handwriting. Her hands shook. She almost opened it.
Then she stopped.
The next morning, Richard announced an emergency executive meeting. Emma was summoned upstairs.
When she entered the conference room, she immediately noticed that every senior executive was there. Richard sat at the head of the table. Beside him were lawyers, financial officers, board members, and the company's largest investor.
On the table was the old envelope.
Emma's heart stopped.