Chapter 7 - The Desperate Beggar
At eleven o’clock that night, the rain had turned into a torrential downpour that lashed against the brickwork of the NorthStar compound.
The security gate at the entrance to the terminal buzzed. On the security monitors, the glaring headlights of a black Mercedes-Benz illuminated the heavy steel barrier. The car was idling erratically, its front bumper inches away from the iron gate.
“Send him up,” Lilia instructed the security officer through the desk intercom.
Three minutes later, the heavy oak doors of the administrative office swung open with a violent shudder.
Vitaly stumbled into the room.
The transformation from the arrogant, chest-thumping titan of Pavilion Seven to the creature standing in the doorway was grotesque. His tailored suit was soaked through, the shoulders darkened with water, clinging to his heavy frame. His gold-threaded tie was gone, his collar torn open, revealing a red, blotchy neck. His thinning hair was plastered to his forehead by the storm, and his eyes were wild, bloodshot, and wide with sheer panic.
He carried a leather briefcase in his left hand, his knuckles white against the handle.
“Lilia!” he gasped, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon. He took three clumsy steps forward, leaving muddy footprints across the polished hardwood floor. “Thank God you’re still here. Thank God.”
Lilia remained seated behind her desk. She did not rise. She did not offer him a chair. Across the room, two security guards in dark tactical uniforms stood silently by the door, their arms crossed, watching his every twitch.
“You have three minutes, Vitaly,” Lilia said, her voice flat and cold. “Then the guards will escort you off the premises.”
Vitaly threw the leather briefcase onto the desk. The latches sprang open with a sharp metallic snap, spilling stacks of bound documents, bank account statements, and property deeds across the dark oak.
“Take it!” Vitaly cried, his voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic sob. “Take it all! Fifty-one percent! I’m giving you the controlling interest in Vektor-Tech! Right now! I signed the transfer sheets in blank! Look at them!”
Lilia didn't even glance down at the papers. “Three years ago, Vitaly, I sat in a hospital bed with drainage tubes in my side. I asked you for five percent of the company’s operating shares so I could afford my physical rehabilitation. Do you remember what you said to me?”
Vitaly froze, his mouth working silently, like a fish pulled out of the water.
“You told me,” Lilia continued, her voice cutting through the sound of the rain outside, “that a woman who couldn't maintain her health was an operational liability. You told me to be grateful that you left me the plot of mud by the sorting yard.”
“I was stupid!” Vitaly dropped to his knees, his hands slamming down onto the edge of the desk. The sheer indignity of the gesture was appalling; he was weeping openly, tears mixing with the rainwater dripping from his nose. “I was an arrogant idiot, Lilia! Karina poisoned my mind! She told me you were holding me back! She told me I was a genius who didn't need your rules!”
“Karina didn't forge your signature on the asset stripping agreements, Vitaly,” Lilia said, looking down at him with a mixture of cold detachment and mild disgust. “You did that yourself. You thought you were invincible because you had money, a fast car, and a young woman on your arm. You mistook luck and my hard work for your own personal brilliance.”
“The bank called the notes an hour ago!” Vitaly screamed, clutching his head in his hands. “Sterling won’t even take my calls! They’re seizing the depot on Monday! If you don’t open that road tomorrow morning, I’m ruined! I’ll lose the company, the house, the cars! I’ll be out on the street with nothing!”
Lilia stood up slowly.
She walked around the desk, stopping two feet away from where her ex-husband knelt on the wet floor, clutching his knees like a child waiting for a beating.
“When you left me three years ago, Vitaly, you told me that out on my own, I was nothing. You told me that without your contacts, without your contracts, without your name, I would starve.”
She leaned down slightly, her gray eyes locking onto his terrified, tear-streaked face.
“Look around you, Vitaly. Look at this facility. Look at the rails outside. Look at the contracts on Elena’s desk. Not a single stone of this was built with your name. Not a single dollar came from your contacts.”
She straightened up and stepped back behind her desk.
“The road closes at seven o’clock tomorrow morning,” she said quietly. “Just as scheduled.”
“Lilia, please!” he wailed, reaching forward to grab the hem of her trousers.
Before his fingers could touch the fabric, the two security guards stepped forward with practiced efficiency. Thick hands gripped Vitaly’s arms beneath his armpits, hauling him to his feet like a sack of wet flour.
“Get him out of my sight,” Lilia said, turning her back to him to look out at the rain.
“You’re a monster!” Vitaly screamed as he was dragged down the hallway, his heels scraping against the floorboards. “A heartless, vindictive monster! You planned this! You planned this from the very beginning!”
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The heavy oak doors slammed shut, cutting off his shrieks, leaving only the steady, relentless sound of the autumn rain falling on the steel rails below.
***
