Chapter 3 - The Gathering of the Wolves
When Evelyn stepped back into the private dining room, the atmosphere had returned to its normal, high-society hum. Waiters in white tuxedos were moving seamlessly around the long table, serving the main course—thick cuts of prime filet mignon and roasted asparagus on gold-rimmed porcelain.
Graham looked up as she approached, his eyes narrowing slightly when he noticed she hadn't left the building as his mother had undoubtedly instructed. "Back so soon, Ev? I thought you were going to take an Uber back to the house to dry off."
Evelyn didn't answer. She quietly pulled her chair back into place—checking the legs this time—and sat down. She reached into her clutch, pulled out a small, high-density flash drive encased in a sleek silver housing, and placed it flat on the white linen tablecloth right next to Graham’s wineglass.
Graham glanced down at the drive, his brow furrowing with a sudden, sharp spike of anxiety. "What is this? Evelyn, if this is some kind of corporate compliance memo, it can wait until Monday morning. We're in the middle of dinner."
"It's not a memo, Graham," Evelyn said, her voice perfectly calm, carrying across the immediate section of the table. "It's a complete forensic mirror of the 'Vanguard Holdings' accounts in the Cayman Islands. Specifically, the ones created using my forged electronic signature to embezzle nine point two million dollars from the Department of Transportation's maritime security grant."
Graham’s face instantly lost all of its healthy, wine-flushed color. The fork in his hand struck the edge of his porcelain plate with a sharp, metallic clang that caused his aunt to look over in surprise. "What... what the hell are you talking about?" he whispered fiercely, leaning in close so the rest of the family couldn't hear. "Have you lost your mind?"
Across the table, Beatrice’s eyes snapped to the silver flash drive. Her aristocratic composure didn't break, but her knuckles turned white as she gripped the stem of her wineglass. "Graham, what is she doing? Evelyn, if you are attempting to make another scene—"
"I’m not making a scene, Beatrice," Evelyn said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs comfortably. "I’m simply conducting a final audit. You see, Graham thought he was being remarkably clever when he used my personal access codes to authorize those transfers on the fourteenth of every month. He thought that because I loved him, I would never look at the raw metadata of the transactions."
Evelyn looked directly into her husband’s terrified eyes. "But you forgot one very important detail, Graham. I wrote the compliance software our company uses. Every time you logged into that shell account using my credentials, the system automatically recorded the unique MAC address of your personal laptop—the one sitting in your study right now. It also recorded the geolocation data from your phone. You signed those fraudulent manifests while sitting in the penthouse suite with your mistress, Paige, on three separate occasions."
A collective gasp rippled through the immediate family members who had overheard the word mistress. Graham’s cousin lowered his fork, his eyes wide with shock.
"Evelyn, shut up!" Graham hissed, his teeth clenched so tightly his jaw looked ready to snap. He reached out to grab the flash drive from the table, but Evelyn’s hand shot out with terrifying speed, slamming her palm flat over the silver casing before his fingers could touch it.
"Don't touch it, Graham," Evelyn whispered, her green eyes flashing with a predatory, absolute brilliance. "That drive doesn't belong to you anymore. In fact, nothing in this room belongs to you anymore."
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Beatrice stood up, her chair scraping backward with the exact same sound she had used against Evelyn twenty minutes earlier. "That is enough! Evelyn, you are a malicious, low-class lunatic. Security! Where are the managers of this establishment? Have this woman removed from our private room immediately!"
"The managers can't help you tonight, Beatrice," Evelyn said, her voice remaining low, steady, and entirely unbothered by the older woman’s screaming. "Because twenty minutes ago, the entire hospitality staff was legally ordered to stand down."
