Chapter 5 - The Eviction of an Empire
The room erupted into muffled shouts and frantic whispering among the board members.
"This is fraud!" Alexander roared, slamming both fists onto the glass table.
He stood up so violently his executive chair tumbled backward against the mahogany wall.
"She lied to me!"
"She signed our marriage license as Claire Bennett!"
"She deliberately concealed her family name to trap me!"
"She didn't conceal anything, Alexander," Harold replied without flinching.
"Her legal name on her birth certificate has always been Claire Bennett."
"She dropped the Vance surname when she was seven years old because her grandmother wanted to protect her from the creditors who dismantled Julian Vance’s holding company after his stroke."
"She never lied."
"You simply never cared enough to ask about her father's family."
"You never asked why her grandmother lived in a private wing of a facility that cost twenty thousand dollars a month."
"You assumed she was poor because she wore cotton shirts and spent her weekends reading books instead of buying diamonds at Tiffany's."
"Shut up!" Alexander hissed, his chest heaving under his custom-tailored suit.
"Call her right now."
"Get her on speakerphone!"
"I cannot reach her, Alexander," Harold said calmly.
"She revoked all third-party communication channels."
"She appointed me as her sole trustee and legal executor."
"And my instructions from Mrs. Whitmore are exceptionally clear."
Harold reached back into his briefcase and produced a second document.
This one was fresh, printed on stark white paper, and bore the blue ink seal of the Cook County Circuit Court.
"What is that?" Richard Cole asked, his hands trembling as he reached across the table.
"That," Harold said, sliding it toward Alexander, "is an emergency freeze on all operational assets of Whitmore Logistics."
"Claire has exercised her right under Section 14 of the Master Land Covenant."
"Because Whitmore Logistics failed to disclose the leasehold encumbrance to public shareholders during your initial public offering, the covenant is in default."
"She has terminated your ground leases."
"Effective at midnight tonight, every truck entering the South Chicago terminal is trespassing on private property owned solely by Claire Bennett Vance."
"Every shipping container sitting on the docks is subject to an immediate possessory lien."
"And the mansion overlooking Lake Geneva?"
Alexander's breath caught in his throat.
"The Lake Geneva house was bought with corporate funds drawn against the logistics balance sheet," Harold whispered.
"The trust holds the superior mortgage."
"You don't own that house, Alexander."
"She does."
Alexander pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking fingers.
He dialed Claire's number.
*The number you have dialed is no longer in service.*
He dialed the home landline.
*We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.*
He turned to Richard.
"Get Ava on the phone."
"Tell her to pack her things and get out of the city apartment."
"Why Ava?" Richard asked, bewildered.
Alexander didn't answer.
His mind flashed back to the Drake Hotel ballroom.
He saw Ava’s smug, triumphant smile under the crystal chandeliers.
He saw the cream-colored pearls resting on her throat.
*The same pearls that had belonged to Eleanor Vance.*
The same pearls that were listed as the symbolic seal of the Vance Trust in Julian Vance’s 1978 corporate charter.
Without those pearls physically returned to the trust safe in Harold Sterling's office, the leasehold could not be cured under the cure-of-default clause.
He had literally handed the key to his entire empire to his twenty-nine-year-old mistress to show off at a cocktail party.
Alexander grabbed his coat from the rack, ignoring the shouts of his board members, the flashing warning lights on the Bloomberg terminals, and the ringing phones at the reception desk.
He ran toward the private elevator.
He had to find Ava.
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He had to get those pearls back before the stock market opened tomorrow morning.
Because if he didn't, the woman he had discarded with a single bag wouldn't just leave him.
