Chapter 4 - WHY THE FAMILY STOPPED SAYING HIS NAME
The next morning, Corbin called his uncle Harrison.
Not his mother.
Harrison had been chief operating officer during Nathaniel’s tenure.
If Theodore built the scheme, Harrison had been close enough to smell smoke.
Harrison arrived at Corbin’s office angry.
“You dragged me in at seven for what?”
Corbin placed one photocopied invoice on the table.
Harrison stopped.
Good.
Corbin added another.
Then another.
Harrison did not sit.
“Where did you get these?”
“Answer first.”
“They’re old.”
“True.”
“They were investigated.”
“By Dad.”
“By outside accountants.”
“Selected by Dad.”
Harrison’s jaw tightened.
“What are you implying?”
Corbin leaned back.
“Who was Nathaniel Prescott?”
Silence.
The same family silence.
Again.
Only now Corbin recognized it as strategy.
Harrison sat.
“A disgruntled employee.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Corbin.”
“Try again.”
Harrison looked toward the window.
Then:
“He discovered things.”
There.
Truth entering reluctantly.
“What things?”
“Your father had financial arrangements.”
“Eleven million dollars?”
Harrison’s face changed.
That was enough.
“You knew.”
“I knew some.”
“How much did you take?”
Harrison stood.
Corbin did not move.
“How much?”
“It wasn’t theft.”
“Then what?”
“Family distributions.”
“From operating companies through fake vendors?”
“It was complicated.”
Corbin laughed.
Every thief eventually invents a complicated word for stealing.
“How much?”
Harrison looked at him.
“About two.”
Two million.
Corbin went quiet.
Harrison continued:
“Your father said it would be replaced.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“And Nathaniel?”
“He found invoices.”
“So you framed him.”
“No.”
“Then explain the embezzlement finding.”
Harrison’s face tightened.
“Your father panicked.”
There.
The dead patriarch available to absorb responsibility.
Convenient.
“You signed the termination recommendation.”
Silence.
Corbin had already found it in archived HR files.
Harrison knew.
He sat again.
“We thought if Nathaniel went public, banks would pull lines. Projects would freeze. People would lose jobs.”
“So you destroyed one man to protect thousands.”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“Did Nathaniel steal anything?”
Harrison looked at the table.
“No.”
Corbin’s throat closed.
Not ambiguous.
Not maybe.
No.
---
“Why did everyone stop using his name?”
Harrison looked tired.
“Because your father ordered it.”
“What does that mean?”
“No discussion. No references. HR records sealed. Legal communications restricted.”
“Why?”
“Because Nathaniel kept asking for independent review.”
Corbin frowned.
“After he was fired?”
“Yes.”
“He mailed information to board members.”
“Your father intercepted most of it.”
Corbin stared.
“How?”
“He controlled the executive office.”
Then Harrison said something worse.
“Nathaniel mailed one package directly to you.”
Corbin stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Your father had your executive mail screened.”
“My father opened my mail?”
“He considered it company material.”
Corbin stood.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
Harrison’s voice lowered.
“He asked you to look at the numbers personally.”
Corbin felt physically sick.
Nathaniel had tried to reach him.
Directly.
And for four years, Corbin had believed Nathaniel simply vanished from the company after some financial misconduct he never bothered to examine.
His father had not merely erased Nathaniel’s name.
May you like
He had prevented Corbin from hearing it.
---
