Chapter 7 - The Disintegration at the St. Regis
The rain continued to hammer relentlessly against the high arched windows of suite eight-fourteen at the St. Regis Hotel.
Inside the opulent living room, the stench of stale champagne and burning anxiety hung thick in the air.
Bridget Ford paced across the hand-woven rug, her bare feet cold against the hardwood floor.
Her eyes were swollen and red from hours of weeping, and her expensive blowout from the previous afternoon had flattened into a ratty tangle.
Her smartphone was buzzing against the glass tabletop for the twentieth time that morning.
The screen flashed with the name Toby.
Bridget snatched the device, her fingers shaking so badly she nearly dropped it.
"Toby?" she gasped into the speaker.
"Bridget, what the hell did you get me into?" her brother screamed from the other end of the line.
His voice sounded terrified, cracking with the raw panic of someone who had never seen the inside of a courtroom.
"There are two federal investigators sitting in my living room right now!"
"They have bank statements from Grand Cayman showing my name on three wire transfers totaling two point five million dollars!"
"They told me if I don't cooperate, I am looking at ten to fifteen years for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering!"
"Toby, calm down, listen to me," Bridget begged, pressing the phone against her ear.
"Jerome is taking care of it."
"Jerome is the CEO, he has the top attorneys in New York."
"Jerome doesn't have anything!" Toby yelled back.
"They showed me the news, Bridget!"
"Jerome was escorted out of the Drayton Tower in handcuffs an hour ago!"
"His assets are frozen, the company stock has crashed thirty-five percent, and the SEC just opened a formal criminal investigation into Northgate!"
"They gave me forty-eight hours to provide a sworn affidavit naming who instructed me to open Crestview Holdings!"
"I'm not going to federal prison for you and your married boyfriend, Bridget!"
"I'm giving them every text message, every email, and every wire confirmation you ever forwarded to me!"
The call went dead with a sharp click.
Bridget stared at the black screen, her chest heaving as a cold wave of nausea rose in her throat.
Before she could process the betrayal, the suite door rattled and swung open.
Jerome walked in, his suit jacket wrinkled, his white shirt stained around the collar with sweat and rain.
His face was pale grey, his silver hair uncombed, and his wrists bore bright red welt marks from the steel handcuffs.
He had been released on his own recognizance after three humiliating hours at the precinct, thanks only to a bail bondsman hired with the last cash advance on his secondary account.
Bridget rushed toward him, grabbing his wet lapels.
"Jerome! Toby just called me!"
"The feds are at his apartment in Denver!"
"He's going to flip on us!"
"He's giving them all the emails!"
Jerome did not hug her.
He did not offer a soothing word.
He roughly shoved her hands off his jacket, sending her stumbling back against the sofa.
"Get away from me, Bridget," Jerome hissed, his voice dangerously low.
"This is all your fault."
Bridget looked at him in disbelief, her mouth hanging open.
"My fault?" she shrieked.
"You brought me to that dinner!"
"You told me I belonged at that table!"
"You told me Leona was just an empty figurehead who signed whatever papers you put in front of her!"
"You slapped her!" Jerome roared, his eyes wild with fury.
"You arrogant, narcissistic little girl!"
"You had to show off!"
"You had to assert your pathetic little ego in front of the most powerful institutional investors in North America!"
"If you hadn't hit her, Cornelius Hail wouldn't have pulled the eighty-five million dollar bridge facility!"
"I could have stalled the audit for another month!"
"I could have closed the Bellmore deal and replenished the offshore funds before the board ever noticed!"
"You destroyed twenty-four years of my career with one stupid, childish slap!"
Bridget laughed, a bitter, hysterical sound that filled the room.
"You think you were saving this company?"
"You stole that seven million to buy that penthouse in Aspen for us!"
"You spent eight hundred thousand dollars on private jets and diamond jewelry to convince me you were a billionaire!"
"I was twenty-six years old when you started whispering in my ear that you were leaving your wife for me!"
"You used my brother's name because you were too much of a coward to put your own signature on the shell company!"
"I was protecting you!" Jerome shouted, slamming his fist against the desk.
"You were protecting your own neck, Jerome!"
"And guess what?"
Bridget reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a sleek silver flash drive.
"I wasn't as stupid as you thought."
"Every time you told me to wire money from Northgate's operational account to Crestview, I recorded the phone calls."
"I have every WhatsApp message where you instructed me how to forge the compliance memos."
"I have every hotel receipt where you used corporate credit cards to fund our trips."
Jerome’s face drained of every remaining drop of color.
"Where did you get that?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
"I backed up your private server three months ago when I realized how nervous you were getting about the third-quarter audit," Bridget said, clutching the drive against her chest.
"If I'm going down for wire fraud, Jerome, you are going down for the entire empire."
Before Jerome could lunge across the table to snatch the drive from her hands, the room telephone rang with loud, persistent chimes.
Jerome stared at the phone, then slowly picked up the receiver.
"What?" he snarled.
"Mr. Chase, this is the general manager of the St. Regis," a cold, professional voice said.
"I am calling to inform you that following your public arrest this morning and the revocation of your credit facilities, our accounting department has terminated your reservation."
"We have placed your personal luggage in storage."
"Hotel security is currently outside your suite to ensure you vacate the premises within fifteen minutes."
Jerome dropped the phone onto the floor, the plastic casing cracking against the baseboard.
He looked at Bridget, and Bridget looked at him.
May you like
The luxurious illusion they had built on stolen millions and arrogant deceit had completely vanished.
All that remained were two panicked co-conspirators, trapped in a room they could no longer afford, waiting for the federal marshals to arrive.
