Chương 8 - The Desperate Blackmail
By four o'clock in the afternoon, Camden had been processed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan and released on a five-million-dollar secured bond.
The bond had been posted not by his wealthy friends or Julian Vance, but by a predatory bail bondsman who placed a secondary lien on his mother’s ancestral properties in Virginia.
I was sitting in my private office on the forty-fifth floor, reviewing our emergency press releases with our communications director, when Nora stepped inside and closed the door firmly.
"Camden is downstairs in the private lobby," Nora said, her voice tight with tension.
"He managed to slip past the ground-level security using an old contractor service elevator key that hadn't been decommissioned yet."
"Did he bring counsel?" I asked, looking up from my desk.
"No," Nora replied.
"He is alone, completely disheveled, and he claims he has personal materials that will force you to drop the federal charges immediately."
I leaned back in my executive chair, considering the situation for three seconds before nodding.
"Have two building security officers stand immediately outside my office door," I instructed.
"Search him thoroughly for weapons before you let him enter, then leave us alone."
Nora hesitated. "Vivian, he is completely unhinged; it might not be safe."
"Camden is a coward, Nora," I told her plainly.
"Cowards only hurt people when they can hide behind legal contracts or private jets."
"When they are stripped of their money, they have no teeth left."
Two minutes later, the heavy frosted-glass doors opened, and Camden was pushed inside by two stone-faced security guards.
They checked him with hand-held metal detectors, stepped backward into the hallway, and pulled the doors shut, leaving us alone in the massive corner office.
Camden looked like a ghost of the man who had stepped off my Gulfstream forty-eight hours earlier.
His bespoke suit was wrinkled and stained with sweat, his tie was missing, and his eyes were wild with desperate, feverish energy.
He held a battered manila envelope clutched tightly against his ribs like a shield.
"You think you’ve won, don't you, Viv?" he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw from hours of screaming in holding cells.
"You think you can just erase nine years of marriage and destroy my life with your father’s legal attack dogs?"
"You destroyed your own life, Camden," I answered, keeping my hands resting flat on the mahogany desk.
"I merely documented the wreckage you left in your wake."
Camden stepped forward, slamming the manila envelope onto the edge of my desk with trembling force.
"Look at it!" he snarled, pointing a shaking finger at the paper.
"Open it and look at what your father did fifteen years ago!"
I didn't move an inch; I simply stared at the envelope with mild, unimpressed curiosity.
"What pathetic leverage have you fabricated now, Camden?"
"It’s not fabricated!" he yelled, his face turning purple.
"Those are the original environmental compliance logs from the Savannah maintenance facility in 2008!"
"Your precious father covered up a toxic fuel spill that contaminated three acres of municipal groundwater to protect the initial public offering of Alden Meridian!"
"He bribed the state inspectors, buried the soil samples, and falsified the remediation reports!"
Camden leaned across the desk, a triumphant, psychotic grin stretching across his cracked lips.
"I took those files from his private safe the week before he died," Camden hissed, his eyes bulging.
"I kept them as an insurance policy in case you ever tried to push me out of the company."
"If those documents hit the press, Alden Meridian’s clean-energy certifications will be instantly revoked by the Department of Transportation!"
"Your defense contracts will be canceled, your stock will crash through the floor, and your father's saintly name will be dragged through the mud forever!"
I looked at the envelope, then raised my eyes to meet his desperate, triumphant gaze.
"Are you finished?" I asked quietly.
His smile faltered slightly, thrown off by my total lack of panic.
"Did you hear what I just said, Vivian?!" he shouted, slamming his fist against the desk.
"I will burn your father's legacy to the ground unless you go to the federal prosecutor, drop the embezzlement charges, and restore my operational trust!"
I reached into my desk drawer, pulled out a pair of thin reading glasses, and put them on with agonizing slowness.
Then, I reached out, took the manila envelope, and tossed it into the stainless-steel trash can beside my desk without opening it.
Camden’s jaw dropped in absolute disbelief.
"What... what are you doing?" he stammered, looking at the trash can as if I had lost my mind.
"My father died eight years ago, Camden," I said, my voice steady, merciless, and cold as deep space.
"And three years ago, I discovered those exact Savannah inspection logs while completing an internal sustainability review."
Camden blinked, stepping back.
"You... you knew?"
"I didn't just know; I spent fourteen million dollars of my personal dividends executing a full, unpublicized environmental remediation of the Savannah site," I revealed.
"The municipal groundwater was completely purified, the local county board was fully compensated through an independent settlement, and the EPA issued a full certificate of compliance eighteen months ago."
"The documents in your envelope are obsolete drafts of an issue that has already been legally and ecologically resolved."
Camden stared at me, his entire body deflating as if every cubic inch of air had been sucked out of his lungs.
"No..." he gasped, shaking his head frantically.
"No, you’re lying! You’re bluffing to protect the stock price!"
"Press button three on the intercom, Camden," I told him, pointing to the console on my desk.
"Ask Nora to bring in the EPA clearance certificate bearing the seal of the United States government."
"You don't have leverage, Camden."
"You have never had leverage."
"You were an empty ornament in this office, and now you are an indicted felon trying to blackmail a company with resolved history."
Camden dropped to his knees, his hands clutching the edge of my desk as the absolute, crushing reality of his helplessness broke him completely.
"Vivian, please," he sobbed, real tears streaming down his grimy cheeks, his dignity evaporating into pathetic whimpers.
"Please don't send me to prison."
"I’ll sign everything over; I’ll give up the divorce claims, I’ll never speak to Lila again, I’ll leave the country!"
"Just tell the federal prosecutor it was an internal accounting error... please, Viv, I was your husband!"
I looked down at the man who had mocked me on my own tarmac forty-eight hours earlier, the man who had laughed while his mistress insulted me.
"You were my biggest mistake, Camden," I said softly, picking up my phone and pressing the security alert button.
The office doors opened immediately, and the two security guards entered, grabbing Camden under his armpits and hoisting him off the floor.
"Get him out of my sight," I instructed without looking at him again.
May you like
"And inform the precinct that Mr. Pierce has just violated the conditions of his bail by attempting to extort a federal witness."
Camden’s wailing cries echoed down the executive corridor as they dragged him away, his pathetic pleas dying out as the elevator doors closed on his ruined life.
