Chapter 26: The Firing
The doors had barely closed behind Olivia when Serena turned and looked at Vincent Karp.
He smiled first, his floor smile, warm and practiced. "Ms. Voss," he said. "I had no idea Mr. Donovan would bring something like that in here. I would have stopped it."
"You prepared it," Serena said.
"I prepared a viewing," he said, lifting the folder. "That is my job. A private client, a serious interest. I followed the request."
"Open the folder," she said.
His smile held, but his fingers tightened. "Of course. With press here, we might handle this privately. Your office. Five minutes, and I can walk you through every page."
"No," Serena said. "Here."
Paula Nguyen stepped closer, tablet in hand. Jonah Fields stood near the desk, knuckles white. At the edge of the floor, Chase Donovan sat in a chair no one had offered him, watching silently.
Karp laughed. "Let us be reasonable about procedure. There is a process. Compliance reviews it. Human resources reviews it. Nobody gets tried on a showroom floor."
"You are not being tried," Serena said. "You are being fired."
Karp straightened. "On what grounds?"
"On yours," Serena said. "Six VIP clients paid you cash allocation fees for cars they were promised early. Six clients, Vincent. The total was one hundred and eighty five thousand dollars."
"That is not true," he said. "Clients offer deposits. They misunderstand timelines. If anyone handed me cash, it went into the proper accounts, and I can show you receipts."
"Show me the receipt book," she said.
"I do not carry a receipt book during a preview."
"No," Serena said. "You carry two. The official Pavilion books begin with the number seven. Every receipt in them is logged and reconciled. The second book begins with the number two. That one is logged nowhere here, because you never brought it to Paula."
His face changed then, charm giving way to calculation. "I have no idea what you are describing."
"Jonah found it," Serena said. "He saw it in your desk this morning and reported it to Paula earlier today, the thing you counted on no one doing."
Jonah swallowed hard. "I only saw the cover, Mr. Karp, and the first page."
"You took it to the right person," Serena said. "Paula called our chief financial officer. Meg Osei and an auditor reconciled the accounts this afternoon."
Paula spoke, crisp and clear. "They matched, Ms. Voss. Six payments, six clients, none in the Pavilion ledger. The auditor traced every payment to the same account."
"VK Allocations LLC," Serena said. "Your personal company. Your initials, Vincent. You did not even bother to hide behind another name."
"That company handles legitimate consulting," he said, his voice rising. "You cannot call me a thief because a junior employee saw a notebook and panicked."
"I can," Serena said, "because the auditor did the arithmetic, not Jonah. And because of the folder you are still holding."
He looked down at it, startled.
"Inside it," she said, "is a purchase agreement you prepared for tonight, for a car that was never for sale, written as if this company had authorized you to promise the Lumen One to Chase Donovan. You were going to use my prototype as bait for one more fee."
"That agreement was a draft," he said. "A courtesy draft. Nothing was signed."
"Nothing needed to be signed for you to be finished here," Serena said.
He tried outrage then. "Fourteen years I have sold for this marque. I built half the client list in this room. You do not get to erase that."
"You erased it," Serena said quietly. "One client at a time, one envelope at a time. Clear your desk tonight. Marcus Bell will walk with you."
The security lead stepped forward. "Mr. Karp," Marcus said. "I will stay with you until your things are collected."
"Do not touch your computer," Paula said. "Do not take files, keys, or client lists. Your access ended when Ms. Voss spoke."
Serena held his gaze. "In the morning, our counsel will have this file. The police will have it after counsel. If any of those six clients calls you tonight, refer them to Paula and say nothing else."
Then she turned to Jonah, her voice softening. "Jonah Fields. Thank you. By name, and in front of everyone who should hear it. You did the honest thing when it cost you something, when it would have been easier to close the drawer and protect your job."
Jonah's eyes filled. "I was scared, Ms. Voss."
"I know," she said. "You did it anyway. Paula, note it in his record."
"It will be there tonight," Paula said.
Marcus gestured toward the corridor, and Karp walked, folder in his hand, past the line of the Lumen One he had tried to sell.