He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 253

Chapter 253

Alex’s POV

The government investigators were not the same as the board.

The government investigators mwere doing something different.

They were not,protecting anything.

They were building, something

My lawyer had been told the meeting would concern the Hale Group leak.

That was the framing in the notification… a standard financial regulatory inquiry, the kind that followed the public disclosure of sensitive corporate materials and that existed to establish whether any laws had been broken in the handling or release of the information.

Expected.

Manageable

My lawyer had said as much in the car on the way to the building.

The first twenty minutes confirmed it.

Then the folder.

One of the investigators…. the younger one, the one who had been writing while the other asked questions, slid several documents across the table.

“Mr. Voss,” he said. “Can you explain these authorisations?”

I looked at the documents

My name on the approvals.

My electronic signature …. the individual format of the credential that existed on every authorised transaction I had made since the digital signing infrastructure was implemented at Voss Maritime.

The dates

I looked at the dates.

Every transaction had been approved in the period between the shooting and my waking.

Every one of them

The dates corresponded to the weeks when I had been in a hospital bed with monitors attached to me, while Maya had been sleeping in a chair beside me, while the attending had been giving the family updates about progress that could not be communicated to me.

While I had been somewhere inside the dark, following a voice.

These documents carried my approval

From that period.

“That’s impossible,” I said.

+15 Banus

Not as a statement of emotion…. as an accurate statement of fact. I was in a coma. I could not have approved anything.

“We’ve confirmed that,” the second investigator said. “The hospital records are unambiguous. You were in intensive care throughout the relevant period.” He held my gaze,. “Which is why we’re trying to determine who had access to your executive credentials.”

My lawyer’s hand on my arm.

I waited.

The investigator continued

“The transactions in question total a significant amount,” he said. “They moved through corporate accounts via standard approval pathways….. which is what makes them difficult to flag in real time. They looked legitimate because the authorisation infrastructure was legitimate.” He paused. “The credentials were genuine. Only the person using them was not.”

My electronic credentials

Used without me.

While I was unconscious.

Someone had accessed my executive credential infrastructure during the two months I was in a hospital bed and had used it to move money through accounts that carried my approval on every transaction.

The account references

I looked at the documents again.

At the detailed numbers in the transaction records.

It had used my credentials while I was unconscious to route money through it.

And when I had come back and had started to find it, it had arranged to have me suspended from the company that gave me the resources to look

The meeting ended at twelve-thirty.

My lawyer said the appropriate things.

I said nothing additional.

We walked out through the building and…. My phone rang before we reached the car.

The number was the private banking line.

The number that existed for exactly the category of call that needed to happen outside the ordinary banking

channel…

I answered.

“Mr. Voss, I’m sorry to be calling under these circumstances.”

I stopped walking.

“Tell me, what is it?” I said.

+15 Brus

“The regulatory inquiry has triggered a provisional hold on the corporate accounts pending the investigation’s Completion,” he said. “This is standard procedure under the relevant statutes… it isn’t a determination of anything, it’s a procedural step.”

“How many. accounts?” I said.

He told me

I stood in the parking level.

Not all of them

But enough.

The operational accounts that funded the day-to-day running of the company’s commitments. The accounts that paid salaries, fulfilled contracts, managed the continuous financial obligations of a maritime company that ran around the clock.

Frozen

Pending the completion of a process that had been designed to be thorough, which was another way of saying it would not be quick.

“Thank you,” I said.

I ended the call

Stood in the parking level

My lawyer looked at me.

“The accounts,” I said.

He closed his eyes briefly.

“The board will need to know,” he said.

“The board already knows,” I said

My phone vibrated again

I looked at the screen.

Emergency Board Meeting. Attendance Required Immediately.

I looked at my lawyer.

At the notification.

This was not a series of events.

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