Chapter 7 - The Wrath of a Cornered Parasite
I handed both girls back to Marisol and instructed them to stay inside the garden pavilion.
I walked briskly through the grand corridor, my footsteps sounding like thunder against the marble tile.
When I stepped through the massive arched front doors onto the driveway, the scene was chaotic.
A sleek black Mercedes sedan was parked haphazardly across the cobblestones, blocking the exit gate.
Standing next to the driver’s side door was Julian Sterling.
Julian was thirty-five, dressed in an immaculate custom-tailored Italian suit with slicked-back blond hair and the smug, predatory smile of a Wall Street fraudster.
Two of my security guards stood with their arms crossed, preventing the car from reversing.
Chloe was standing in the middle of the driveway, her designer suitcases thrown onto the pavement around her feet.
Her hair was wild, her designer makeup smeared across her cheeks, her face twisted into a mask of pure, unbridled malice.
When she saw me step out onto the porch, she let out a shriek that echoed across the hillside.
“You arrogant, self-righteous bastard!” she screamed, pointing a trembling, manicured finger at me.
“You think you can just discard me like a piece of cheap furniture?! You think you can humiliate me in front of the servants?!”
Julian stepped forward, raising his hands in a placating, patronizing gesture.
“Alexander, let’s be reasonable adults here,” Julian said, his voice smooth, dripping with false diplomacy.
“There’s no need for melodrama or security guards. Chloe was emotional. Raising someone else’s children is a stressful endeavor, especially when they are clearly disturbed.”
Before Julian could take another step, I crossed the distance between us in three long, predatory strides.
I stood inches from Julian’s face.
I was half a head taller than him, and the cold, murderous fury in my eyes made his practiced smile instantly vanish.
“Take one more step toward my house, Julian,” I whispered with lethal precision, “and Hector will break your jaw before your feet touch the ground.”
Julian swallowed hard, his throat bobbing visibly as he took an involuntary step back toward his car.
“Alexander, look,” Julian stammered, his slick confidence beginning to crack.
“We just want Chloe’s personal property. The hard drive from the study, the shared financial binders, and the severance package she’s legally entitled to as your common-law partner.”
I let out a low, humorless laugh that sent a chill down Julian’s neck.
“Common-law partner?” I echoed coldly.
“California does not recognize common-law marriage. And as for the hard drive you’re asking for, you mean the encrypted drive containing the proprietary acquisition data for Vance Enterprises?”
Chloe lunged forward, her voice rising to a frantic pitch.
“That data belongs to both of us! I helped you organize those portfolios! I know every shell company, every offshore account, and every tax strategy you used over the last three years!”
She took a deep, ragged breath, trying to regain her leverage.
“If you don’t wire ten million dollars into Julian’s offshore holding account by five o'clock today, Alexander, I swear to God I will hand those files over to the Federal Trade Commission and the press! I will destroy your company’s stock price overnight!”
Hector took a step forward, his hand resting on the grip of his sidearm, waiting for my command.
I raised my hand, signaling Hector to stand down.
I looked at Chloe with an expression of profound, chilling pity.
“Did you honestly believe, Chloe, that I kept my actual corporate files on an unencrypted server in the guest study?”
Chloe blinked, the color slowly draining from her flushed face.
“What... what are you talking about?”
“The files you copied onto your thumb drive two weeks ago were honey-pot documents,” I said, my voice completely flat and devoid of emotion.
“Every account number on that drive is an active decoy monitored by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The moment Julian attempts to access or transfer those decoy assets, a red flag triggers directly on the desk of Special Agent Miller at the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.”
Julian’s face turned an ashen shade of grey.
He whipped his head toward Chloe, his eyes blazing with panic.
“You told me you personally watched him enter the master password!” Julian hissed at her.
“I did!” Chloe shrieked, backing away from Julian.
“He entered it right in front of me!”
“I entered the password I wanted you to see,” I clarified, taking a step toward the two of them.
“Because I knew from the moment you started asking about my corporate trusts that you weren’t looking for a husband. You were looking for a liquidation.”
From down the winding private canyon road, the distant wail of sirens began to echo.
The red and blue flashing lights cut through the morning fog, reflecting off the high stucco perimeter walls.
Three Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrol cruisers roared through the open iron gates, tires screeching as they formed a barricade behind Julian’s Mercedes.
Chloe froze in sheer terror.
Julian threw his hands into the air immediately, backing away from Chloe as if she were carrying a plague.
“This has nothing to do with me!” Julian shouted toward the arriving deputies.
“I just came to pick up a passenger! I have no involvement in this dispute!”
“Shut up, Julian!” Chloe screamed, lunging at him with her nails out, scratching a deep red gouge across his cheek before two armed deputies tackled her to the cobblestones.
“Get off me! Do you know who I am?! I am Alexander Vance’s fiancée! Alexander, tell them! Tell them to let me go!”
I stood on the driveway in silence, watching the deputies snap heavy steel handcuffs around Chloe’s wrists.
I watched her kick and scream as they dragged her toward the back of the police cruiser.
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She wasn’t a glamorous Bel-Air socialite anymore.
She was a caught criminal, thrashing in the dirt of the kingdom she had tried to steal.
