Chapter 8 - The Investor Sabotage
Two days passed in a blur of legal filings,
secret meetings,
and calculated silence.
I had moved into a high-end extended stay hotel downtown,
paying for it with the fifteen thousand dollars I had salvaged from the bank,
refusing to step foot back into the apartment that now felt like a contaminated zone.
Calvin had tried to call me forty-two times.
He had left seventeen voicemails,
ranging from angry demands to pathetic,
weeping apologies,
begging me to just come home so we could work things out.
I listened to every single one of them,
saving the audio files to a secure cloud drive,
documenting his escalating desperation for Marcus to use later.
It was Thursday afternoon,
the exact time Calvin and Stephanie were scheduled to meet with a crucial third investor.
According to the business plan I had stolen from his desk,
my two hundred thousand dollars was enough for the deposit,
but they needed an additional half-million dollars in venture capital to secure the commercial mortgage for the renovations.
They were meeting Arthur Vance,
a notoriously strict,
old-school real estate tycoon,
at an exclusive country club on the outskirts of the city.
I knew this,
because Marcus had subpoenaed the LLC's communication logs,
and I was currently sitting in a black SUV parked across the street from the club's main entrance.
I was not going to crash the meeting in person.
That was messy,
emotional,
and completely beneath me.
Instead,
I had arranged for a much more devastating,
surgical strike.
At precisely two-fifteen in the afternoon,
a motorcycle courier pulled up to the club's security gate.
I watched through the tinted window of the SUV as the courier handed a thick,
sealed envelope to the concierge,
instructing him that it was highly confidential and required immediate delivery to Mr. Arthur Vance in the private dining room.
Inside that envelope was a masterpiece of destruction,
curated by myself,
Marcus,
and David's architect brother.
It contained a certified copy of the emergency court injunction freezing CS Holdings' assets.
It contained a drafted affidavit from David,
detailing Stephanie’s history of corporate embezzlement.
And most importantly,
it contained a personal letter from Richard,
my boss and a close personal friend of Arthur Vance,
vouching for my character and explicitly detailing how Calvin had defrauded his own wife to fund the project.
I rolled down the window slightly,
letting the cool afternoon breeze wash over my face,
waiting for the inevitable explosion.
Twenty minutes passed in excruciating silence.
Then,
the heavy oak doors of the country club swung open violently.
Arthur Vance walked out first,
his face red with fury,
his silver hair catching the sunlight as he marched toward his waiting town car without looking back.
Seconds later,
Calvin and Stephanie stumbled out of the doors,
desperately chasing after him.
Calvin was waving his hands frantically,
his expensive suit jacket flapping in the wind,
his face twisted in a pathetic mask of panic.
"Arthur, please!"
I could hear Calvin shouting across the pristine driveway,
the desperation echoing loudly.
"It is a misunderstanding,
we can explain the legal situation!"
Arthur Vance stopped at the door of his car,
turning to look at my husband with a gaze so cold it could have frozen the ocean.
"You are a thief, Mr. Davis,"
the old tycoon barked,
his booming voice carrying easily across the distance.
"You steal from your wife,
you lie on your financial disclosures,
and you bring a known embezzler to my table expecting me to hand you half a million dollars?
If you ever contact my office again,
I will personally ensure you are investigated by the SEC."
Arthur got into his car,
slamming the door with a thunderous thud,
and the vehicle sped away,
leaving Calvin and Stephanie standing alone in the driveway.
Stephanie looked like she was going to be sick,
her hands trembling as she clutched her designer purse,
the facade of the confident businesswoman completely shattered.
Calvin ran his hands through his hair,
spinning around in circles,
the reality of his collapsing empire finally crashing down on his shoulders.
I rolled the window back up,
a deep,
satisfying warmth spreading through my chest.
I tapped the partition to alert my hired driver.
"Take me back to the city, please,"
I said smoothly.
May you like
The first pillar of their dream had just been annihilated,
but I was far from finished.
