“He’s great with people,” I told them. “He understands the vision.”

He didn’t, not really. But he understood how to stand in front of a camera and look like he did. He liked the fitted suits with the company logo stitched discreetly inside. He liked the attention.

I told myself I didn’t mind when reporters quoted him instead of me. I told myself I preferred the background.

And the money? That wasn’t weakness, I rationalized. That was strategy. It was easier to funnel a stipend into his account each month than to argue over every bill, every “emergency” expense, every time he offered to pick up a check with a card that technically linked back to me.

Eighteen thousand a month for Brandon’s “brand ambassador salary.”
Twelve thousand a year for Lisa’s club fees.
Mortgage, insurance, cars.

I looked at it like any other project: costs of doing business.

Until the day my accountant sent me the preliminary notes from a routine internal audit—just a standard check on our marketing budgets—and the numbers started to look wrong.

Not big, at first. Just… off.

A transfer here that didn’t match an invoice. A recurring charge there with no campaign attached. It could have been innocent. Accounting errors happen. People mislabel things. Mistakes slip through.

But I built my company on the belief that if a structure failed, it was because someone ignored a hairline crack. So I requested a more detailed look.

“Pull anything labeled ‘brand ambassador discretionary,’” I told my accountant. “Last twelve months.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions.

When the new report landed in my inbox a week later, it came with a note at the top: You’re going to want to see this in private.

I opened it alone in my office, the door closed, the city stretching in glass and steel beyond the windows.

$200,000.

That was the total for a series of transfers from Grayline’s marketing accounts into an LLC called Artistic Vision Consulting.

It was a bland, forgettable name. The kind of name you gave a shell company when you didn’t want anyone to look closely. Registered agent: Isabella Martinez.

I didn’t recognize the name at first. But I recognized the pattern.

Small transfers at first—$5,000 here, $8,000 there—then larger chunks. Vague memos like “curation consulting” and “art acquisition strategy.” And yet, we hadn’t purchased new art for any properties in a year and a half. We’d actually cut that line item to reinvest in community green spaces.