Chapter 7 - The Tables Turn Completely
The silence in the executive boardroom was so absolute you could hear the hum of the Chicago traffic twenty floors below.
Julian Sterling’s face had gone from arrogant amusement to a mottled, furious red. He snatched the fraudulent mortgage document off the table, his fingers trembling slightly as he re-read the dissolution clause Marcus had pointed out.
"This is a technicality," Julian hissed, looking up at me with venom in his eyes. "A corrupt local court could take months to sort this out. In the meantime, your son is still facing federal indictment for forging a bank document. Do you really want your only son spending the next ten years in a federal penitentiary over a piece of paper, Ruth?"
Vanessa gasped, grabbing Daniel’s arm. "Daniel! Tell her to fix this! Make her pay the bank!"
I slowly buttoned my Chanel jacket, mirroring the exact gesture I had made on the dock when Vanessa dumped my dinner into the dog bowl.
"My son made his bed, Julian," I said steadily. "And now he gets to lie in it. If federal prosecutors want to investigate forgery, embezzlement, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud involving your loan officers—who clearly didn't do their due diligence—I am more than happy to hand over all of Marcus’s digital evidence to the FBI before lunch."
Julian flinched. Bank regulations were notoriously strict, and conspiring to push through a questionable mortgage with a dissolved subsidiary could cost his institution its federal charter, not to mention his own banking license.
"You wouldn't," Julian whispered. "You'd destroy your own family's reputation just to spite us?"
"My family's reputation was built by Arthur and me over forty years of honest work," I replied coldly. "Daniel and Vanessa are parasites who forgot where they came from. They are entirely your problem now, Julian. Good luck collecting your five million dollars from a man who can't even pay his own cell phone bill."
I turned toward the door, gesturing for Marcus to follow.
"Wait! Ruth, please!" Daniel scrambled out of his chair, falling to his knees on the carpeted floor as I walked past him. He reached out, grabbing the hem of my skirt. "Mom, please don't let them arrest me! I'll do anything! I'll work on the estate, I'll scrub the floors, I'll do whatever you want! Just save me!"
I looked down at my son, feeling a profound, aching sadness, but zero pity.
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"You told me the hired help eats last, Daniel," I whispered down to him, gently pulling my skirt from his trembling fingers. "It looks like your shift has just begun."
Without another word, I walked out of the boardroom, leaving Daniel sobbing on the floor, Vanessa screaming curses at the empty air, and Julian Sterling staring in horror at a multi-million-dollar disaster of his own making.
