The heavy silence that followed Ambrose Ward’s words was broken only by the rhythmic, insistent drumming of the rain against the Disciplinary Sub-commission building. Inside the small, sterile room, Serena Frost felt a cold, visceral chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
She was a woman who had spent years as the intimate confidante of Chester Preston. She knew the dark underbelly of Lakeport Properties Ltd. far better than the public auditors ever would. The $1.2 million in missing labor wages was just the tip of a massive, frozen iceberg of financial irregularities. There were millions more in unpaid material costs, equipment leases, and—most dangerously—the bridge loans her husband had taken from shadow lenders to keep the Lakeport Development Zone projects afloat whe
