Chapter 8 - The Fall of House Mercer
By Sunday afternoon, the Mercer family compound in the affluent hills outside Chicago was surrounded by black federal vehicles.
Reporters camped outside the wrought-iron gates that had once kept the rest of the world at bay.
Inside the twenty-four-room estate, the atmosphere was as cold and lifeless as a mausoleum.
Evelyn Mercer paced hysterically across the marble floor of the great room, clutching an armful of fur coats and diamond jewelry boxes.
She had spent the last twelve hours frantically stuffing her luggage, preparing to flee on a chartered flight to Zurich before her passport was flagged.
“Arthur, get off the couch!” Evelyn shrieked, her voice shrill with raw terror.
“The private driver will be here in twenty minutes! If we do not leave for the airstrip now, they will lock us in cages like Trevor!”
Arthur sat motionless in a wingback chair, staring blankly at the cold ashes in the grand fireplace.
He was wearing an old, unwashed sweater, his hair disheveled, his hands resting limply in his lap.
He looked as if twenty years of life had been stripped from his body in a single weekend.
“Leave it, Evelyn,” Arthur murmured, his voice sounding completely hollow and defeated.
“There is nowhere to run.”
“Every account has been frozen.”
“The bank canceled the jet lease four hours ago.”
“We are broke, Evelyn. Completely, utterly broke.”
Evelyn dropped a leather jewelry box onto the floor, pearls and emeralds scattering across the hardwood like useless pebbles.
“You pathetic old coward!” she screamed, her face twisting into an ugly mask of rage.
“I spent twenty-six years playing the dutiful socialite wife for you!”
“I endured your moods, I raised your idiot stepson, and I helped you build this social standing!”
“You promised me that we would be untouchable! You promised me that Trevor would inherit an empire!”
Arthur slowly turned his head to look at the woman he had abandoned his daughter for.
In her frantic, selfish eyes, he saw no love, no loyalty, and not a single shred of genuine grief.
She was nothing more than a vulture who had picked the meat from his bones and was now angry that the carcass was dry.
“You never cared about me, did you?” Arthur whispered, a dry, bitter laugh escaping his lips.
“You only cared about the Mercer name and the money that came with it.”
“Of course I cared about the money!” Evelyn shrieked, stomping her foot on a string of broken pearls.
“Did you actually think a woman like me would marry an arrogant, aging tyrant like you for love?”
“Your own daughter hated your guts! She ran away to the mud because she could not stand the sight of you!”
“And she was smarter than all of us, because she saw through your pathetic ego before I did!”
Before Arthur could respond, the sound of heavy boots echoed from the front porch, followed by a thunderous knock on the front doors.
“Federal agents! Open the door!” a voice boomed from outside, shaking the reinforced timber.
Evelyn let out a high-pitched cry of pure terror, grabbing two suitcases and sprinting toward the kitchen exit leading to the gardens.
Arthur did not even flinch.
He sat quietly in his chair as the heavy front doors swung open under the force of a hydraulic ram.
Six federal marshals swept into the foyer, their sidearms drawn, their tactical vests displaying the seal of the United States Justice Department.
“Arthur Mercer, stay where you are and keep your hands visible!” the lead marshal ordered, approaching the living room.
Arthur did not raise his hands; he simply kept them folded in his lap, staring ahead at the cold fireplace.
“I am right here, officers,” Arthur said softly, his voice devoid of any resistance.
“There are no weapons in this room, only an old fool who forgot what mattered.”
From the rear garden, the sounds of shouting and a brief struggle pierced the cold afternoon air.
Seconds later, two marshals led Evelyn back through the kitchen, her hands cuffed behind her back, her designer clothes covered in mud.
She was thrashing and screaming obscenities, cursing Arthur, cursing Trevor, and cursing the day she ever heard the Mercer name.
The lead marshal approached Arthur, gently pulling the old man’s wrists behind his back to apply the restraints.
“Arthur Mercer, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit federal procurement fraud, wire fraud, and grand larceny against the United States government.”
Arthur felt the cold steel of the handcuffs bite into his wrists, the exact same metal that had bound Trevor inside the White House.
As they led him down the front steps toward the waiting patrol car, Arthur looked past the flashing red and blue lights.
Across the street, on a neighbor’s lawn, an American flag fluttered proudly in the autumn wind.
For twenty-six years, Arthur had looked at that flag and saw only a potential government client to be milked for profit.
Today, as he was shoved into the back of a police cruiser, he finally saw the flag for what it truly was:
May you like
The symbol of the nation his daughter had served with absolute honor, while he had disgraced it for gold.
A tear slipped down Arthur’s weathered cheek as the police car accelerated down the winding driveway, carrying him away from the empire that was no more.
