Chapter 284 - 284: 284 | Money Problems

<🎧 Song Recommendation: redrum by 21 Savage>

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The Uncrowned Tour had been making money long before it reached Vancouver, but keeping twenty-six arena shows running was a different matter from selling twenty-six arenas' worth of tickets.

The five million dollars Vanguard had contributed helped put the production on the road, covering the enormous deposits for equipment, transport, staff and staging.

After Miami, money from the completed concerts began coming in through advances and settlements, allowing David and the finance team to pay the expenses waiting in the next city.

It had worked well enough that Von rarely needed to look at the accounts himself. The audiences were coming, the merchandise was selling, and the convoy kept moving.

Now, sitting on the lead coach with Emily's phone in his hand, he was staring at a notice that threatened to bring the whole thing to a halt.

[MERIDIAN TOURING SERVICES]

[URGENT: SETTLEMENT DISBURSEMENTS SUSPENDED]

● Funds currently restricted: $7,418,600

● Reason: Beneficiary verification dispute

● Further disbursements: ON HOLD

Von read the amount again, just to make sure he hadn't mistaken a comma for a decimal point.

'Over seven million?!'

He looked up at Emily. "How long has this been going on?"

"The notice just came through. I've already tried calling their accounts department, but the emergency line isn't answering." She held out her hand for the phone. "I need to get David."

"He's right there." Von stood and waved toward the front of the bus. "David, come here a sec."

The change in his voice was enough to make Max stop talking. Conor looked over from the hallway, still holding his packet of chips, while Alex straightened in his seat. David joined them and read the notification without saying anything at first.

"Is this from Meridian?" he asked Emily.

"Yes. They're holding the settlement account. I don't know why yet."

David stared at the amount. "Fuck."

"What's going on?" Max asked.

"Finance problem," David replied, already reaching for his phone. "Nothing for you boys to worry about right now. Go get some sleep."

"That sounded suspiciously like something to worry about," Alex muttered, but Conor was already herding him toward the bunks.

Von followed Emily and David into the rear lounge, closing the pocket door behind them. The noise from the front of the coach faded, leaving only the hum of the engine and David's voice as he called the tour accountant.

It took three attempts before someone picked up.

"Sorry to wake you, but I need you to open the Meridian account," David said. "Right now."

The woman on the other end sounded half asleep until he mentioned the restriction. A moment later, Von heard typing, followed by a quiet curse.

"I'm seeing it," she said. "They've blocked the entire pending balance, including the latest deposits. Nothing can be released until the beneficiary dispute is cleared."

"Who filed a dispute?" Emily asked.

"It doesn't say. Just that their compliance department has found conflicting payment instructions. I'll request the supporting documents."

"And how much do we have outside that account?" Von asked.

There was more typing. "A little over a million in the operating account. That's after Vancouver's payroll and expenses. We've already paid the Denver venue and our main transport contracts, so Monday isn't the problem. It's everything coming due afterward."

David rubbed a hand over his face. "Chicago."

"Exactly. We have two arena dates there, equipment hire, crew payments, insurance and another round of transport costs. The money from the last several shows was supposed to cover those commitments."

Von leaned back, thinking. He'd been looking at the tour's sold-out numbers for weeks. It was almost ridiculous that they could have earned so much and still be talking about running short of cash.

"Can't we just send the next settlements somewhere else?" he asked.

"Not without changing the payment instructions with the promoters," the accountant replied.

"Meridian is the administrator named in our settlement agreement, and they've already received the funds in question. We can't move money that's sitting in their account just because we want to."

"Okay. Then why the hell are we using them?"

Emily answered before the accountant could. "Because I put the arrangement in place."

Von turned toward her.

"Before the tour started, we were going to collect settlement payments directly from each promoter. Some of them wouldn't release the final balance until days after a show, and all the different payment schedules were becoming a headache.

Meridian offered to consolidate the receipts and advance the payouts on a fixed schedule. The finance team reviewed it, but David didn't like having so much of our money tied to one administrator. I pushed for it and signed the agreement."

"And it worked," David added. "Up until tonight, anyway."

"It worked because nobody had disputed anything," Emily said. "I signed us into a contract that gives them control over those receipts until the tour ends. Now they've frozen everything and we can't even tell the promoters to pay us directly."

She looked thoroughly disgusted with herself. Von had seen that expression in the hospital hours earlier, and he wasn't particularly interested in going through the same argument twice.

"Alright, you signed it. Now what are our options?" he asked.

"We can challenge the hold, request the disputed instructions and bring in Zack," Emily replied. "But if Meridian won't release the money, we'll need another source of cash before Chicago."

"Then call Zack. David, find out exactly what we need to pay and when." Von pointed toward the phone on the table.

"And ask if they can unlock the part of the money that isn't disputed. I'm not letting somebody hold seven million dollars because their paperwork doesn't match."

David nodded and stepped out to make another call. Emily stayed where she was, rubbing her thumb against the edge of her phone.

"I should've kept the original arrangement," she said quietly. "We'd have had a few slower payments, but at least the money would be going straight into our own account."

"Em, we have a company whose entire job is to handle payments telling us it can't handle payments. You think I'm gonna sit here blaming you instead of them?"

"I'm the one who hired them."

"And I'm the one who approved a twenty-six-show tour. You want to start handing out blame, we've got all night." Von gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze before getting up. "Come on. Let's figure out what's actually wrong first."

***

By Saturday morning, the convoy had cleared the border and was making its way across Washington. Most of the crew was asleep, but David had turned the rear lounge into an office, with a laptop on the table and invoices spread beside two untouched cups of coffee.

Zack was on speakerphone from Miami. He had already contacted Meridian's legal department, and judging by his tone, the conversation hadn't gone particularly well.

"They're not alleging the tour is bankrupt or that we've failed to pay anybody," he explained.

"Someone submitted conflicting beneficiary details against the account. Their compliance team froze the balance rather than risk releasing it to the wrong party. That's a standard enough precaution, but they can't keep hiding behind it without showing us what they're comparing."

"And when will they show us?" Von asked.

"They're promising a response on Monday. I've made it clear that isn't good enough. I'm escalating to their general counsel and asking for a partial release on the undisputed receipts."

"Monday? That's when we're performing in Denver."

"I know. But we can keep Denver running with what's already been paid. The bigger question is how long this hold lasts."

David slid a sheet across the table. "I've marked the payments we can't delay. We have enough cash for the immediate expenses, but the Chicago suppliers are going to start calling for deposits. Some of our vendors have been with us since Miami and will probably give us a little room. The others won't."

Von scanned the list. The amounts were large, but none surprised him individually. There were equipment rentals, crew wages, freight expenses and venue-related payments, all coming due on different dates. He could see how quickly the money added up.

"What about Vanguard?" he asked. "PARADOX is selling like crazy. Arthur might be able to advance something against the money we're already expecting."

"Possible," Zack replied. "But that money belongs to Vanguard and V-OMEN. We'll need a properly approved commercial advance, not somebody moving cash across accounts on a phone call. I'll speak with their legal team."

"Good. Put it on the list. And I can use some of my own money if we need to cover the next few days."

"Keep that as a fallback," Zack said. "We don't yet know what happened to the settlement instructions, and I don't want you throwing personal funds into an arrangement we haven't checked."

"Fine. But we're not canceling a show over it."

"Nobody's suggesting that yet," David replied.

Von looked toward Emily, who had spent most of the call quietly studying the agreement on her laptop. She'd hardly said a word since Zack joined them.

"Em?"

"I'm checking the authority section," she said. "Meridian couldn't have changed our payout destination without a fresh instruction. The original agreement doesn't give them permission to send our money anywhere they like."

"Then somebody sent them one," Zack said. "That's what I'm trying to get."

Emily nodded and went back to the document. Von left them to it for a while, stretching his legs in the narrow hallway before getting something to eat.

Max was awake at the galley table, scrolling through clips from Vancouver with a bowl of cereal in front of him.

"You look like you've been up all night," Max observed.

"Because I have."

"Is it bad?"

Von took a banana from the fruit bowl. "It's annoying. David and Emily are handling it."

Max studied him for a second, then slid the cereal box across the table. "You want some?"

"Bro, why are you offering me your leftovers?"

"It's a fresh box! I'm trying to be nice!"

Von laughed, took the box anyway and poured himself a bowl. He'd barely sat down when the pocket door opened and David appeared, his phone still pressed against his ear.

"Von, Emily wants you in the back. Zack's got the documents."

Von put the spoon down and followed him.

Emily had turned her laptop toward the empty chair. An email from Meridian's compliance department was open on the screen, with an attachment displaying the payment instructions that had triggered the hold.

"They finally sent it?" Von asked, taking a seat.

"Just now," Zack replied through the speaker. "We have the original agreement, the account details we supplied in October and this new instruction. Meridian received it before Vancouver."

Von bent forward. The document carried their touring company's name, the payment administrator's reference numbers and a section marked AUTHORIZED CLIENT REPRESENTATIVE.

At the bottom was Emily's signature.

She was staring at it too.

"That's mine," she said.

Von looked up. "You signed this?"

"I remember signing a payment authorization when we moved the settlements to Meridian." She reached for the laptop and scrolled back to the first page. "But I need to see exactly what they've attached it to."

Then she stopped scrolling.

"...Wait."

Zack heard the change in her voice. "Emily?"

She turned the laptop around again, pointing to a line beneath the account instructions.

"Why does it say this?"

Von looked at the line she was indicating, and the smile he'd been wearing only a few minutes earlier disappeared.

The payment destination listed on the document wasn't their touring company's bank account...