Imprisoned by secrets

Chapter 18

Twenty-eight years ago...

Hector Rivera stared at the numbers in front of him. He'd always had a good head for numbers. He'd once believed that he couldn't make any mistake when it came to calculating profit and loss. For the first time, he wanted to be wrong.

He had to be wrong! It couldn't be possible.

He kept punching numbers into the calculator, hoping that the silly device was the source of his confusion but he was getting the same answer. He even flung the calculator and got a new one. It was pointless. He still got the same answer.

He was starting to think he wasn't the one making a mistake. He was too good to be making the same error over and over again. He didn't make blunders like the disaster in front of his table.

He ran his hands through his hair to help him think. His head was muddled up. He felt sick like he would throw up soon.

Hector had always been in love with numbers. They were the only part of business that came easily to him unlike meeting investors and pitching ideas to a board room. It was why his father had trusted him to audit and manage the accounting sector of the business. He was the only one thorough enough to make head or tail of the family's finances.

This was the first time he wished he wasn't so good with numbers. He wanted to be wrong. He had to be wrong. He wished he could call someone else to look at it but he knew they would only take twice as much time as he'd taken and still come up with the same result.

None of the family accounts looked right. This meant one thing.

It took ten minutes for the meaning of this to sink in. When he accepted that he was indeed correct and the figures were all accurate, it felt like he had been sucker-punched in the belly.

"We are in serious debt." He said aloud then clamped his lips shut hoping no one else had heard him say such a terrible thing.

They weren't just in debt. They were on the verge of bankruptcy.

How could they be bankrupt?

They owned so many businesses!

One of them should have generated revenue!

One of them should have remedied the mess!

Everything had gone into that accursed oil mine. Now it had gone into flames!

He threw his pen down angrily, thinking of what to say to his family now that he'd discovered the horrible truth. He had tried to book a specialist for his sick mother using their reserve funds but then he found out his father had dabbled into that as well.

His father hadn't listened to him and now look what had happened!

He seriously wondered how his father had managed to keep the business running for long. He knew nothing about business.

If the news got out, the sharks would invade. Other companies would buy their shares at rock bottom prices.

They would be poor. No one would associate with them in case their misfortune was contagious. His mother would die without the kidney transplant as well.

She had been put on the waiting list while he had struggled to figure out what was wrong with the numbers.

He gathered up the papers and decided it was time Mr. Rivera was accountable for once. He was tired of trying to figure out everything on his own when he wasn't even in charge of the family business yet. He wasn't the CEO and from the looks of it, he wouldn't be a CEO for many years.