Chapter 4
Silence fell over the boardroom like lead.
Even Julian Courtland looked away, unable to meet Damen’s gaze.
"Damen, it wasn't what it looks like," Elena whispered, her voice tightening with panic. "She came to my apartment! She was hysterical!"
"You called me from Mount Sinai," Damen said, each syllable dropping like a hammer hitting an anvil. "You told me you were bleeding. You told me you were at the hospital terrified."
"I... I was!" she stammered. "I went there later!"
"Page fourteen of the police report," Damen read aloud, his eyes tracking the brutal, sterile words typed on the precinct paper.
*'At 7:42 p.m. on the evening of June 12th, witness statements and high-definition lobby surveillance from 1048 Fifth Avenue confirm Miss Elena Courtland entered the Vance residence uninvited using a keycard previously issued to company personnel.'*
Damen stopped reading. He looked up, his face drained of all color.
"You went to our home."
Elena didn't answer. She pulled her silk blazer tighter around her slender frame.
"She went to our home," Damen repeated, turning to the silent board members. "While I was at the office preparing to come home for dinner, you went to my house."
"She needed to know the truth!" Elena suddenly shouted, her veneer of delicate victimhood shattering into jagged, bitter shards. "You promised me for six months that you were leaving her! You swore that as soon as the funding round closed, you’d file for divorce! But then you got her pregnant, Damen! You were stringing me along!"
"So you went to confront an expectant mother?" Damen’s voice shook with an uncontrollable rage.
"I went to tell her to step aside!" Elena cried out, her eyes blazing. "I told her that you loved me. I showed her our texts! I showed her the hotel receipts from Paris and Zurich! I told her she was an anchor dragging you down! And she went crazy, Damen! She tried to push me out the door. She grabbed my arm, and I just... I pulled away! I didn't push her! She tripped on the rug! It was an accident!"
The horrific sequence of events reassembled itself in Damen's mind with sickening clarity.
Meline, seven months pregnant, blindsided in her own foyer by his mistress. The confrontation. The shove. The fall onto the hard marble border.
And then Elena, realizing what had happened, fled the apartment. She didn't call 911. She ran to her car, panicked, drove to an emergency clinic, and then—to cover her tracks and secure her alibi—called Damen, faking a medical crisis to draw him away from the city and out to the Hamptons before Meline could even get off the floor to dial for help.
And he had run to her.
He had abandoned his wife while her placenta tore away from the uterine wall.
"You let our baby die," Damen said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
"It was an accident!" Elena screamed, tears finally genuine, born of pure terror. "She lay there for an hour before the building concierge heard her groaning! How is that my fault?! You’re the one who didn't check on her! You stayed with me in the Hamptons for six days! You didn't call her once! You wanted an excuse to get away from her just as much as I did!"
The words hit him square in the chest.
She was right.
The most agonizing, soul-crushing part of the revelation wasn't Elena's cruelty—it was his own complicity. He had spent six days telling himself that Meline was just being petty, that she was giving him the silent treatment, that she needed to learn that his business came first. He had used Elena to punish his wife for daring to demand his time.
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open.
Two men in charcoal suits walked in, followed by four uniformed officers of the New York City Police Department and two federal agents flashing Homeland Security and SEC credentials.
At the front of the group stood an elderly man with silver hair, an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, and eyes like chilled steel.
Arthur Sterling.
The most feared litigation attorney on the Eastern Seaboard. A man who only represented old money, sovereign wealth funds, and people who wanted their enemies thoroughly eradicated.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Sterling said smoothly, his voice carrying effortlessly over the stunned room. "Miss Courtland, please remain seated. Detective Miller has a warrant for your arrest on charges of aggravated assault resulting in the termination of a pregnancy, reckless endangerment, and leaving the scene of an injury."
Elena gasped, clutching her father’s arm. "Daddy, do something!"
Julian Courtland stood up, red-faced. "Sterling, this is an internal matter—"
"Sit down, Julian," Sterling replied, not even glancing at him. "Before the SEC unseals the federal indictment regarding your offshore short-selling positions on Vance Medical stock."
Julian froze, slowly sinking back into his leather chair.
Sterling then turned his cold, calculating gaze upon Damen Vance.
May you like
"And as for you, Damen," Sterling said, pulling a heavy wax-sealed envelope from his breast pocket and tossing it onto the table directly in front of him. "Your wife asked me to deliver this personally."
***
