Chapter 5 - Cornered Wolves Bite
Evan stared at Julia as if she had spoken in a foreign tongue. The air in the executive office grew so thin, so taut, that the hum of the hard drive fans sounded like turbine engines.
"You trick," Evan hissed, stepping around the desk toward her. "You calculated, ungrateful little bitch. You couldn't even give me a son, and now you think you can take my company?"
"Evan, don't move an inch," Arthur Chen warned, reaching into his trench coat pocket.
Evan didn't listen. The veneer of civilization had completely peeled away, exposing the snarling, cornered beast beneath. He lunged straight for Julia, his hands hooked like claws, intent on ripping the laptop from her hands or violently putting her in her place.
He never reached her.
From the shadows behind the server rack, Frank, the night guard, stepped forward. He didn't use a baton. He didn't shout. At fifty-eight, having worked twenty years in industrial security, Frank simply caught Evan by the throat with one massive forearm, spun him around, and slammed his face flat against the cold plate glass of the window overlooking the city.
The thud of Evan’s skull against the glass was sickeningly loud.
"Step back, Mr. Hayes," Frank whispered directly into his ear, twisting Evan’s right arm behind his back until the joint groaned. "You move again, and I’ll test if this tempered glass holds two hundred pounds of dead weight."
"Call the police, Arthur," I said, my voice dead and cold.
"No!" Evan screamed, his face squished against the glass, saliva spraying from his lips. "Kendall! Call Kendall! She has the contracts! You can’t prove anything without her testimony! I’ll say Julia authorized it! I’ll tell the district attorney she was paying me off to hide her mental breakdown!"
"Kendall isn't coming to save you, Evan," a new voice said from the doorway.
We all turned.
Standing in the entrance of the executive suite was Kendall Vance. She was still wearing the emerald coat from the photograph, her dark hair pulled back into an elegant chignon, her face pale and drawn. Behind her stood Marcus Vance, his arm resting gently on his niece’s shoulder.
Kendall looked at Evan pinned against the glass. Her dark eyes were filled not with love, but with cold, venomous betrayal.
"Kendall!" Evan gasped, struggling against Frank’s grip. "Tell them! Tell them we’re taking the contracts! The jet is waiting!"
Kendall didn't move toward him. She pulled a folded legal document from her designer handbag and tossed it onto the desk. It landed right beside Julia’s laptop.
"He told me Julia had an abortion three weeks ago," Kendall said, her voice shaking with controlled fury as she looked at Julia’s round belly. "He told me she terminated the pregnancy because she didn't want a child to ruin her figure, and that he was leaving her because she was a monster."
Julia gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
"He told me he had already transferred the joint capital into our LLC account," Kendall continued, her gaze shifting to me. "He swore on his mother’s grave that the money was his private inheritance from his grandfather. But twenty minutes ago, Uncle Marcus came to my apartment with the bank records. Evan didn't put my name on the offshore receiving accounts in Grand Cayman. He put his own name—and a forged power of attorney in *my* name."
Kendall took a step toward Evan, her lip curling with absolute disgust.
"He was setting me up to take the fall for the corporate theft, Mrs. Sterling," Kendall said, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "If the federal auditors came knocking, the paper trail led straight to *KV Design* and my architectural license. He was going to board that plane to Zurich alone, leaving me here with a felony indictment and his baby."
Evan’s eyes rolled back in terror. "Kendall, baby, no! That’s a lie! Marcus is manipulating you! I love you! I did this for our son!"
"Our son," Kendall laughed bitterly, touching her own rounded stomach. "Our son will never know your name. I’ve already signed an affidavit with Marcus. I’m turning state’s evidence tomorrow morning at nine."
Down on the street below, the faint, wailing howl of police sirens cut through the night air, growing louder, closer, echoing off the concrete canyon of the financial district.
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"You hear that, Evan?" I said, walking over to where he was pinned. I reached out and took his corporate ID badge from his lapel, ripping the lanyard clean off his neck. "That’s the sound of your real beginning."
***
