Extraordinary Jackson Ryder

12: Stolen Funds!

"Get out of my office right now!" Jackson didn't take it lying with Isaac and his son.

"Who do you think you are to speak to my father in such a way?" Nicholas was quick to push Jackson backward.

"I'm not going to repeat myself. I said, get out of my office!" Jackson pressed the emergency bell and a few seconds later guards came rushing in.

"You might have escaped this now, but I promise you won't escape for long!" Isaac slammed at him and stormed out.

Jackson sat down on his chair to pack up his files. It was almost time for the board meeting and he planned to present the reports he had gathered.

Isaac Moore had misappropriated a total of one million dollars of funds!

30 mins later, the meeting began with Xander more quiet than usual.

This time, Mr Ernestine was the one that took the floor. "Like we spoke the last time, we tried to consider the proposal of increment of the prices of our products. My Ryder here was one of the persons that spoke against it. Can we have him take the floor?"

"Of course. Good day, gentlemen. We'll begin with reasons why prices of products must not be increased." Jackson took over the projector.

"Here, it states that out of the five hundred thousand dollars allocated to the Wil&Ryder Factories every month. Only 70% is used to produce the final products. The remaining 30% is totally unaccounted for."

Gasps of shock went up the hall.

"Now, if we take this 30% and invest it back into the capital, there would even be avenue to reduce our prices and still produce quality products!"

Xander's face blanched considerably. "How can we be so sure you aren't bluffing?"

"Well, permit me to call in a witness from the Factory itself." Jackson waved his hands and a tall man stepped in.

He expected some form of resistance from Xander and prepared ahead.

"Hello everyone, I'm Stephen, the current assistant Financial secretary at the Factory and I was summoned here by the General Manager."

"Right." Jackson nodded. "Do you agree that the factory is always allocated a sum of five hundred thousand dollars per month for production?"

"Yes sir."

"Out of this money, roughly how much is spent on the real production itself?"

"About 65 to 70%." Stephen replied.

"Then what happens to the rest of the money?"

Stephen faltered for a moment before replying. "Er, the Manager of the Factory collects it in cash and uses it for personal issues."

"What?" a gray haired man, Mr Keith, slammed the table angrily. "Summon in the Manager of the Factory right away! How dare he use company money for personal use?"

"Unfortunately, there was no way he could have done that without the knowledge of some of us here." Jackson glanced around, catching guilty expressions on a few men.

"What are you trying to say?" Ernestine frowned.

"While auditing the accounts, I found that none of this misappropriation had been noticed at the headquarters even when it was brought before the board members."

"You mean to say some of us knew about the deceit but covered him up?"

"Here," Jackson flipped through some portions on the screen. "For the past 5 years, the Factory Manager has been bribing some board members, including the accountant in charge of the presentation."

"That's enough!" A man suddenly slammed the table hard. "Enough with the slanderous lies unless you have enough proof to back it up!"

"What other proof so you need apart from the one on the screen, Mr Holton?"

"We all know evidences like this are usually fabricated! He did this himself without a credible accountant, how can we trust a random person?" Holton hissed.

"That's where you're making the mistake, sir. I had a professional accountant by my side when I was auditing the accounts." Jackson drew out some documents to show them signature of a Chartered Accountant.

The room was silent for a while before Keith got up. "We surely can't take this lying down! Summon the Manager of the Factory right now!"

In less than 2 minutes, Isaac Moore was standing opposite the board members, his face grim as he listened to the charges leveled against him.

"I have nothing to do with this! These reports are lies cooked up by this man!" He pointed accusing fingers at Jackson.

"Are you saying the account of your asst Financial secretary is fake?"

Isaac face blanched when he set his eyes on Stephen. "You! How dare you betray me after all I've done for you?"

"I-" Stephen trembled visibly.

"In case you don't know, I'm paying for your grandma's life support. From today onwards, consider her dead!"

"No!" Stephen cried. "You can't do that, please. I didn't want to expose you but I had no choice, one of the board members threatened me to!"

Everyone gasped.

Even Jackson was shocked. "What are you talking about?"

Stephen had approached him yesterday offering to help expose Isaac Moore, his enemy.

He couldn't imagine there was a story behind his compliance.

Isaac was already fuming. "A board member threatened you to expose me! Who the hell is that?" he rushed to grab Stephen's collar. "Tell me before I kill you!"

"It was Mr Keith!" Stephen replied shakily. "He promised that if I exposed you, he would make me the next Manager of Factory, please don't kill me!" Stephen was clearly scared and afraid of Isaac.

"So it was you!" Isaac turned back to face Keith. "After cheating me of all the money we stole, you planned to betray and place all the blame on me!"

"Shut the hell up, and stop slandering me!" Keith gritted angrily. "When have I ever collected money from you?"

"Oh, you want me to remind you?" Isaac laughed, retrieving his phone. "I have evidence! Ample evidence, and I'm willing to go down if it would drag you down with me!"

The next minute, everyone in the hall was frozen with shock.

The amount of video and text evidences Isaac had in store was staggering. Not only Keith, 3 other board members were also implicated in the rife.

"Call the police to drag these criminals away!"