A man in a suit walked through the office, past working employees. All eyes were on the manila folder from the law firm that the man was carrying.
"What's going on? Why is a process server here?" a female employee asked.
"I don't know, but it must be trouble," the employee sitting next to her replied.
The man walked to the CEO's office at the end of the hall. All the curious and nosy employees peeked from behind the walls, watching the man get closer to the CEO's office door at the end. "Click," the man opened the door without knocking, stepped inside, and closed it. The curious employees started to approach the CEO's office door.
Meanwhile, inside, the man walked directly to a man who looked about 38 years old, sitting behind a desk and signing some documents.
"Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell, for the interruption," the man said.
Maxwell looked up at the man in a neat suit in front of him, who, without a word, handed the manila folder to Maxwell.
"Huh, what's this?" Maxwell said, snatching the folder.
"You've been sued," the man replied.
Without delay, Maxwell opened the folder and looked at its contents. He pulled out six sheets of paper and began to read them. His face suddenly turned pale. The first page was a divorce lawsuit from his wife, Fiona, on the grounds of adultery. The second page was a prenuptial agreement, which in one of its clauses stated that a husband or wife who files for divorce has the right to all assets acquired during the marriage if adultery occurs.
The third page was evidence in the form of a chat history between himself and a woman named Melissa, and the fourth page was a printout of photos of the two of them at a hotel, a restaurant, and a villa in the mountains and on the beach. The fifth page was a record of family finances that Maxwell had used in his affair, as well as company funds that he had transferred to the woman named Melissa as compensation for her to get an abortion. And finally, the sixth page was a letter for the full custody of his 10-year-old daughter without any visitation rights for him.
Maxwell immediately stood up, his face looking terrified and deathly pale because he couldn't run and knew that everything in the documents was true. His hands trembled as he held himself up on the desk so he wouldn't fall.
"Mr. Richard, the lawyer for Mrs. Fiona, will contact you shortly. We're giving you 30 days to sign the divorce papers. Excuse me, good day," the man in the suit said.
Without waiting for Maxwell to react, the man immediately turned and left without looking back. "Thump," Maxwell slumped back into his chair, and in a panic, he pulled out his smartphone to call his wife, Fiona. But after trying several times, "Sorry, I can't take your call right now. Please leave a message," he only heard Fiona's recorded voice on her automatic reply.
"Fiona, please answer the phone! I can explain everything! You can't just file for divorce like this!" Maxwell said, leaving a message.
Finally, after trying many times and leaving several voicemails, in addition to sending texts and messages to Fiona's smartphone, Maxwell, giving up because there was no answer, put his smartphone on the desk. Cold sweat began to bead on his forehead. Suddenly, "knock... knock," someone knocked on his door. Without waiting for an answer, a woman came in.
"Mr. Max, the executive board is having a sudden meeting. Please go directly to the meeting room," said the woman, who was his secretary.
"Why are they suddenly having a meeting?" Max asked.
The secretary looked worried and hesitant to answer Max's question. Then she took out her tablet and opened her work email. After that, she walked to the desk and handed the tablet to Max. As soon as Max saw the email's contents, his face became even paler, and this time, he looked truly terrified. The email contained full details about money laundering, using company money for business trips that were actually for personal or affair-related matters, and buying luxury goods with company credit cards that were supposed to be for business purposes.
After seeing all the details, his eyes widened at the total amount of company money he had used, hidden in accounts, or bought property with and transferred to fake companies abroad all this time.
"35 million dollars... E-Everything has been exposed. Who sent this email?" Maxwell asked his secretary.
"Um... I don't know, sir," the secretary said.
Maxwell immediately looked at the sender's name on the email. Of course, he recognized the unusual email address. The sender was his wife, and the recipients were all the employees in the office, HR, board members, the police, and the tax office. Maxwell immediately pulled his hair with both hands. He really couldn't run anymore.
"What am I going to do? Fiona has planned everything. How long has she known I was cheating? All this time, she's been silent and acting normal... I'm ruined. This time, I'm really ruined. This is outrageous. Why didn't she just talk to me in private instead of embarrassing me like this?" he muttered to himself, feeling annoyed and angry at his wife.
Without delay, Maxwell immediately grabbed his smartphone again. He sent a few voicemails, demanding an explanation, getting angry, and accusing Fiona of also using the money he had given her without asking, so she should also be involved. After venting his anger, he immediately stood up and walked out of his office for the meeting with the board. In his head, he had already thought of a way to get out of the trouble he was facing.
However, as soon as he entered the meeting room, he was shocked to see Fiona, his brother Oliver, and his uncle Jake in the meeting room with all the other board members.
"W-What's the meaning of this?" Maxwell asked.
Without saying a word, Fiona replayed the voicemail messages that Maxwell had just sent. Maxwell's face, which had been pale, turned red as his blood boiled.
"Hey... stop that!" Maxwell yelled.
"Please have a seat, Mr. Maxwell," a board member named Michael said.
Seeing all eyes on him, Maxwell had no choice but to swallow his anger and sit down. After that, questions were thrown at Maxwell, and he answered them clearly, but the board members didn't budge because they all had evidence. His uncle, Jake, a financial advisor who had shares in the company and acted as an overseer, revealed the irregularities he had found in the company's books.
Of course, faced with very accurate evidence from a secret investigation without his knowledge, Maxwell couldn't argue at all. He could only stare at Fiona, who had a flat, expressionless face, staring at him. Because the commercial contracting business and the contracts with the government that Maxwell ran were a family business, the board members finally agreed that Oliver, Maxwell's brother, would take his place as CEO of the family company.
Maxwell, who had to accept the decision, looked as if he had been slapped hard, but he couldn't protest because the evidence in front of him was undeniable. In addition, the company also reported Maxwell's crimes to the police so that Maxwell would be tried and face the consequences of his actions. Hearing that, Maxwell immediately stood up and slammed the table.
"Oliver, don't do this!" Maxwell said.
"Don't do this? Do you know what condition our company is in right now? We're heading toward bankruptcy. I have to save this company for all the employees and clean up the mess you made in this company. Now, take the consequences, brother! You've destroyed the company that Dad worked so hard to build for your own personal gain!" Oliver said firmly.
"But we're family! I could go to prison for a long time!" Maxwell said.
"You should have thought about that before you did all this!" Oliver yelled, holding up the files of evidence.
Seeing that his brother wouldn't budge, Maxwell's gaze shifted to his uncle, who immediately raised his hand without letting Maxwell say a word. Finally, he turned to look at Fiona.
"Fiona... baby... you misunderstood. Melissa means nothing to me. You're the only one I love," Maxwell pleaded.
"Hmm, I'm sorry, but this isn't about cheating. This is about the destruction of a family company because of your actions," Fiona replied.
"Oliver, you're doing this because you're jealous of me, right? I'm telling you, Melissa was the one who approached me. I just got carried away. Please, don't destroy my life just because I made one mistake," Maxwell said.
"Huh... one mistake? For six months, you slept with Melissa behind my back, and you even asked her to get an abortion. I've already done a DNA test, and the baby she's carrying is mine, not yours. I'll take care of my child and divorce Melissa. You two deserve to be together," Oliver said.
"That's right," Fiona said, throwing an envelope at Maxwell's face. "Here, look at the results."
With trembling hands, Maxwell opened the envelope. He looked at the DNA results and saw that it was indeed true that the baby Melissa was currently carrying was his brother Oliver's child.
"Melissa told me everything. She said you were the one who approached her and forced her. She finally gave in, and then over time, she started to like you instead, so don't say you didn't do anything wrong," Fiona said.
"And you intended to kill my child because you panicked when Melissa told you she was pregnant," Oliver added.
"Well, thanks to that, everything was exposed, and now, here we are," Jake added.
Maxwell couldn't say anything else. He accepted his defeat and "thump," he sat back in his chair until a few police officers came and took him away in handcuffs. Six months later, due to a large amount of embezzlement, and for also involving an investor who was the child of a government official, which paved the way for the company to get government construction projects, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in a federal prison.