Chapter 108:


    Isolde pressed the button. “Let her up.”


    Two minutester, Ellyn burst through the door. She stopped when she saw the brace. Her eyes widened, filling with tears. “Oh, look at you.”


    For a brief moment, Isolde felt a flicker of something old and instinctive. The biological need to beforted by her mother.


    “It hurts, Mom,” Isolde whispered. “The doctor said the nerve damage might be—”


    “Grayson really did it,” Ellyn interrupted, her voice trembling. She was no longer looking at the brace. She was staring past Isolde, at the terrifying reality of her own bank ount. “He froze everything. The payroll ount. The supplier credit lines. I tried to buy coffee this morning and my card was declined. Declined!”


    The flicker of hope died. It turned into a cold, hard lump of ash in Isolde’s stomach.


    “My arm was almost severed, Mom,” Isolde said, her voice t. “And you’re talking about coffee?”


    Ellyn flushed, wringing her hands. “Of course I care about your arm! But thepany — it’s your father’s legacy. Grayson called me. He said if you just stop this nonsense and go home and apologize, he’ll unlock the funds. He said you’re being unreasonable.”


    “Unreasonable?” Isolde let out a short, brittleugh. “He left me bleeding on the ground. He stepped over me.”


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    “He’s a man, Isolde! They have pride!” Ellyn seized Isolde’s good hand, her grip desperate and mmy. “You have to fix this. Go to him. Beg if you have to. We can’t survive an audit.”


    Isolde pulled her hand away. The word hung in the air.


    Audit.


    “Why can’t we survive an audit?” Isolde asked, her eyes narrowing. “Carson Dynamics has always been clean.”


    Ellyn looked away. She smoothed her skirt, her gaze moving to the window, to the floor — anywhere but Isolde’s face.


    “There are…plexities,” Ellyn stammered. “Loans I took out to keep us afloat after your father was forced out. He left a mess, Isolde. A disaster.”


    Isolde felt the blood drain from her face. Her father, Keyon, hadn’t just been a phnderer — he had been a reckless gambler with thepany’s future. She had known the business was struggling, but she had never known the depths of it.


    “What kind of mess?”


    “He leveragedpany assets for his side projects — projects that all failed,” Ellyn confessed, her voice dropping to a whisper. “To cover the losses, I had to move funds. Restructure loans in ways that a thorough ountant might call fraud. If they look too closely, Isolde… I could go to jail.”


    The revtion was suffocating. It wasn’t ipetence. It was criminal liability — a weapon her mother had forged and then handed directly to Grayson.


    “You embezzledpany funds?”


    “I borrowed!” Ellyn snapped, her voice cracking with self-pity. “To keep thepany from copsing! To maintain the Carson name so you wouldn’t be ashamed! I did it for us!”


    “Get out,” Isolde said.


    “Isolde, please—”


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