Chapter 14 - The Final Audit
Six months later, my corporate team finalized the purchase of our second location—a historic two-story stone building in downtown San Antonio.
I sat in my private corner office above Aura, reviewing the final closing documents for the new property with Marcus Vance and Arthur Pendelton.
"The closing is scheduled for Friday morning, Elena," Marcus said, laying out the deed documents for my signature. "The bank approved the commercial line with zero secondary guarantees required. Your credit rating and business equity are pristine."
"Thank you, Marcus," I said, signing my name—Elena Vance—on the final line of the deed.
Arthur pulled a small white envelope from his jacket pocket and set it on my desk.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A formal notification from the state probation officer," Arthur explained. "Mark Stanhope made his first structured restitution payment of two thousand dollars yesterday. It has been deposited directly into your secondary expansion trust."
I looked at the white envelope for a long moment, then picked it up and filed it away inside a steel drawer under my desk.
May you like
"He will be paying that for twelve years, Elena," Marcus noted softly.
"He will," I nodded, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the bustling street below, where a long queue of dinner patrons was already forming outside Aura’s front entrance under the glowing neon sign. "And every single month, it will remind him who built the house."
