Chapter 7: Forty-Eight Hours
The warrant was executed on a Thursday morning.
Sloane was in a meeting with two of the board members when Dana called.
She stepped into the hallway.
"They went to the house first," Dana said.
"Then his personal office downtown.
They have the server and his financial records."
"Did they find him?"
"He was at the house.
His attorney was already there — I think someone tipped him.
But they executed regardless."
Sloane leaned against the corridor wall.
Through the glass panel of the conference room, she could see Carver and the other board member waiting, patient, watching their phones.
"Is he in custody?"
"Not yet.
Formal charges take a little longer.
But Phillip says the server records alone are enough.
There's a second account we didn't know about — offshore, routed through a holding company.
The DA's office found it in the first pass."
A second account.
She had not expected that.
"How much?" she said.
"They're still counting," Dana said.
"But preliminary estimate is another eight hundred thousand."
Three million, then.
Or close to it.
Over the course of their marriage, while she had been managing contractors and negotiating with suppliers and sleeping four hours a night to make the numbers work, he had been building a parallel ledger.
"Sloane," Dana said.
"Are you there?"
"I'm here." She straightened.
"Keep me updated."
She went back into the meeting.
Carver looked up.
"Everything alright?"
"The DA executed the warrant this morning," she said.
She sat down.
"The audit is going to be larger than we initially thought.
There's a second account."
Carver set his pen down.
"How large?" the other board member said.
"Still being assessed.
But the original two point three was not the full picture."
The room was quiet.
"I want to say something," Carver said.
He was looking at the table, not at her.
"When Phillip held up that page yesterday, my first instinct was to protect my investment.
That's honest.
That's what I was thinking." He looked up.
"But watching you handle the last twenty-four hours — the statement, the audit, the way you've managed this — I want you to know that this board is not going anywhere.
We're in.
Whatever the process looks like, we're with the hotel."
Sloane looked at him.
She had known Carver for three years.
He was not a warm man.
He was precise and careful and he chose his words the way he chose his investments — slowly, and only when he was certain.
"Thank you," she said.
It came out smaller than she intended.
She said it again.
"Thank you, Carver."
He nodded once and picked his pen back up.
They spent the next two hours going through the board's response protocol — communications to the remaining investors, a holding statement for the press, a timeline for the audit findings to be formally presented.
It was detailed, procedural work, and Sloane was grateful for it.
It gave her hands something to do.
At noon, she went to the hotel restaurant and ordered coffee and a sandwich she mostly didn't eat.
Carrie Wald's story had gone live that morning — she had moved faster than Sloane expected.
The headline was straightforward: *Hotel Founder Exposes Alleged Fraud at Grand Opening.* The piece was fair.
It named the hotel, named Sloane, described the events of the ribbon-cutting without sensationalizing them.
It mentioned Grant by name.
It mentioned the audit.
It mentioned that the DA's office had been contacted.
Her phone had not stopped since seven a.m.
She was reading through the messages when someone sat down across from her without being invited.
She looked up.
Bianca.
She was not dressed the way she had been yesterday.
No ceremony clothes, no careful presentation.
She was in a plain coat, and she looked like she hadn't slept.
"I'm not here to fight," Bianca said.
Sloane set her phone face-down on the table.
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I need you to know that I didn't know about the money." Her voice was steady but thin.
"The accounts, the withdrawals — I didn't know.
He told me the hotel was a joint asset.
He told me you had agreed to step back."
"And you believed that."
"I wanted to believe it." She looked down at the table.
"That's not the same thing, and I know that."
Sloane studied her.
She thought about what Dana had said — that Bianca had received, not taken.
That the criminal exposure was limited.
That wanting her to be guilty and proving it were different problems.
"What do you want from me?" Sloane said.
"Nothing," Bianca said.
"I don't want anything.
I just—" She stopped.
"He told me you didn't care about the hotel anymore.
That you were burned out and looking for a way to exit and that he was doing you a favor by managing the transition." She pressed her lips together.
"I watched you walk into that lobby yesterday.
You cared.
Anyone could see that you cared."
"I built it," Sloane said.
"Of course I cared."
Bianca nodded.
She stood up.
She reached into her coat pocket and set something on the table.
The office keys.
"I shouldn't have taken them," she said.
"I knew it felt wrong.
I took them anyway." She stepped back from the table.
"I'm sorry, Sloane."
She left without waiting for an answer.
Sloane looked at the keys on the table.
The same keys she had carried for two years.
The same small brass tag with the room number engraved on it.
She picked them up and put them in her pocket.
Outside, a car pulled away from the curb.
She didn't watch it go.
Her phone lit up.
Dana again.
*Grant's attorney just contacted us.
He wants to discuss terms.*
Sloane picked up her coffee.
It had gone cold.
May you like
*Tell him the DA sets the terms now,* she typed back.
*Not us.*
