The financial investigation unfolded over the following four months, and it was as thorough and as unhurried as everything my brothers do.

Forensic auditors traced nearly eleven million dollars in unauthorized and fraudulent transfers, a number that kept climbing as they dug.

Multiple transactions carried forged digital signatures bearing my name, which is its own serious federal crime, quite apart from the theft.

Prosecutors opened a formal indictment.

The corporate board fired Preston permanently.

Reginald Calloway resigned as chairman in disgrace once the auditors established that he had ignored blatant accounting red flags for years, whether out of complicity or willful blindness the investigation never fully determined, and it hardly mattered which.

The Calloway family was forced to liquidate two private country estates to cover the corporate debts that came due.