Chapter 2 - The Architecture of Ruin
The hospital room was completely silent, save for the rhythmic beeping of my heart monitor and the quiet tapping of Mara’s laptop keys.
She had arrived at 8:00 PM, bypassing the front desk through a side entrance, flanked by a private security guard she had hired on my behalf. The guard, a towering man named Vance, now stood outside my door. Adrian had tried to charm his way past the nurses’ station twice in the last three hours. Both times, he was turned away.
“He’s getting frantic,” Mara said, adjusting her glasses. She didn’t look at me with pity. She looked at me like a business partner preparing for a hostile takeover. “I’ve filed the emergency restraining order. It will be served to him within the hour. If he comes within five hundred feet of you, he goes to jail.”
“Make sure the police serve him at his office,” I croaked, my throat still burning from the bruises. “He has a meeting with his biggest investor at 9:00 AM tomorrow.”
Mara’s lips curved into a sharp, predatory smile. “Done.”
I shifted against the pillows, wincing as fire shot through my fractured ribs. “Tell me about the folder.”
“It’s beautiful, in a horrifying sort of way,” Mara replied, turning the screen toward me. “Adrian is arrogant. He assumed that because you are quiet, you are stupid. He’s been funneling corporate funds into private offshore accounts for three years to avoid taxes. But because you set up the dual-authentication protocols, his name is all over the transfer authorizations, not yours.”
“And the corporate credit line?”
“Maxed out,” Mara said. “He leveraged the firm’s assets to buy that yacht he loves so much. But since you retain thirty-eight percent equity and hold the position of Chief Financial Officer—a title he thought was merely ceremonial—you have the legal right to freeze the accounts pending an audit.”
“Do it,” I commanded. “Freeze everything. The payroll, the vendor accounts, the executive cards. I want his financial oxygen cut off completely.”
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was my mother. Call number twenty-eight.
I picked it up and stared at the screen. The woman who had told me to fix my marriage while I lay battered in an ICU was now desperately trying to reach me because her dream home was slipping through her fingers.
I answered the call and put it on speaker.
“Are you out of your mind?!” My mother’s voice was shrill, hysterical. “The bank just called! They said you withdrew your signature! We are losing the house, Evelyn! The sellers are keeping our deposit!”
“I know,” I said, my voice eerily calm.
“Why would you do this?!” my father yelled in the background. “Call them back immediately and fix this! We are your parents!”
“Family takes care of family, remember?” I echoed her words from months ago. “You chose to ignore your battered daughter. This is your problem now.”
“You little—!”
I hung up and blocked both their numbers.
May you like
For the first time in my thirty years of life, the heavy, suffocating chains of familial obligation shattered. I looked at Mara.
“Step two,” I whispered. “Let’s burn his firm to the ground.”
