Chapter 6 - The Trap Collapses
A week after the viral video scandal, Julian reached rock bottom.
He had been evicted from his luxury apartment because his company credit card—which he had illegally used for personal expenses while inflating his sales figures—was cancelled, and his personal bank accounts were tied up in the Vance Group’s corporate audit lawsuit.
Desperate, broke, and blacklisted across the entire financial and tech sector, Julian had no choice but to move back into his mother’s small, cramped Brooklyn apartment.
The atmosphere in the apartment was suffocating.
“This is all your fault!” Julian screamed at Eleanor, throwing his suitcase onto the worn carpet. “If you hadn’t opened your arrogant mouth at that wedding, I would be married to a heiress right now! I would be a managing director!”
“My fault?” Eleanor shrieked back, her face haggard, grey hair disheveled. “I did it to protect you! I wanted to make sure she didn’t control you! How was I supposed to know her father owned half of Wall Street?”
“Because you’re ignorant!” Julian yelled. “You judged her by her car! You judged her by her clothes! You thought you could bully a soft girl, but you were poking a sleeping dragon!”
Before Eleanor could scream back, a loud, authoritative knock rattled the apartment door.
Julian froze. Eleanor wiped her tear-stained face and cautiously opened the door, keeping the security chain attached.
Standing in the hallway were two officers from the NYPD along with Arthur Pendelton, my father’s head legal counsel, and two representatives from the New York State Department of Financial Services.
“Eleanor Hayes? Julian Hayes?” the lead officer asked.
“Yes… what is this about?” Eleanor stammered, her voice shaking.
Arthur Pendelton stepped forward, holding a thick stack of legal documents. “Mr. Hayes, you are being served with a formal civil lawsuit filed by the Vance Group for corporate fraud, intentional misrepresentation, and breach of fiduciary duty seeking damages in the amount of $4.2 million.”
Julian choked on his own breath, stumbling backward. “Four… four million dollars? I don’t have four hundred dollars!”
“Furthermore,” Pendelton continued, his voice devoid of pity, turning his gaze onto Eleanor, “Mrs. Hayes, you are being served with a summons for a criminal investigation into tax evasion and illegal financial coercion.”
Eleanor gripped the doorframe, her vision spinning. “Tax evasion? What are you talking about? I’m a retired woman!”
“During our financial audit of your son’s accounts,” Pendelton explained smoothly, “we discovered that over the past three years, Julian transferred over $150,000 of unreported company expense funds into your personal bank accounts, which you failed to declare to the IRS. That constitutes federal tax fraud.”
Eleanor’s knees gave out completely. She collapsed onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
“No… no, please! It was just pocket money Julian gave me!” she wailed. “He said his company gave him a allowance!”
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“Ignorance of the law is not a defense, Mrs. Hayes,” Pendelton said, handing the summons through the doorway. “You demanded Elena’s paycheck. Now, the state will be examining yours. Have a good day.”
As the lawyers and police officers walked down the hall, Julian slumped against the wall, staring at his sobbing mother on the floor. The very woman he had destroyed his life to defend had now dragged him into criminal liability.