Morning everyone. Kind of hitting the ground running today so let’s just jump into the morning prompt. Timers set and off we go.
I think Elliot might be getting some revenge.
Thursday, May 14th: The financial report told a different story.
The financial report told a different story. Elliot ground his teeth trying to control his anger. Jonathan was lying. Again.
He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. His brother’s lies were a near constant presence in his life. They had always been there. When they were younger, Johnathan lied about everything from breaking a vase to doing his homework. A lot of his lies revolved around Elliot in fact.
Elliot was only a year younger than Johnathan and he made a convenient scape goat. Elliot was accustomed to being the scapegoat if something was broken. He was also better at school and took advanced classes so despite the one year age difference they were often in the same classes. For Johnathan this meant that he could often steal homework and essays, passing them off as his own.
Elliot grew accustomed to writing two essays for nearly every assignment since the first was stolen so often. Complaining did no good. Johnathan was the golden boy. Gifted at sports he was always in the spotlight. At least as far as their parents were concerned. He was victorious or others cheated him out of the victory.
The warnings often sent home with him for unnecessary roughness and unsporting behavior were, in their eyes just a symptom of their jealousy. While Johnathan was good at sports, he wasn’t good enough to play beyond high school.
The lack of scholarship was of course viewed as short sighted on the school’s behalf. His grades were good, due to his cheating. While Elliot had no choice in providing him homework and essays, he made certain never to sit near his brother during tests if they were in the same room. Thankfully, that was rare. Johnathan instead found others to copy from during tests and so maintained a decent GPA.
He got into college and Elliot made certain to attend a different university, breathing a sigh of relief when he was finally free of the weight of Johnathan.
Except it didn’t end. College proved too much of a drag for Johnathan. He was not the super star he was in high school and fewer people were willing to carry him. He dubbed himself an entrepreneur and was praised for his initiative in starting up his own company.
Now he was looking for investors. Elliot looked at the screen again. Familiar with Johnathan’s lies and boasting and exaggeration, he checked every detail. Not a single one matched the reality of the situation. Everything in the prospectus was a lie. Everything in the financial report he managed to obtain about Johnathan’s company showed that it was more of a shell game than anything else. He took in money from investors. He used incoming funds to show a profit for other investors. Mostly he seemed to put funds into an off shore account.
That took some digging to find, but Elliot was good at that sort of thing. It took him a while but he found the offshore account. He did the math. Idly he wondered how long Jonathan planned to keep up the preens before he scarpered off with the funds disappearing completely.
‘Probably when there is no one left to bilk.’
Ten til Midnight 