Chapter 7 - The Empire Falls
Mercer Holdings began collapsing Monday morning.
Federal investigators executed warrants at six offices.
Three executives resigned.
Two politicians denied knowing Declan.
Victor Hale was arrested before breakfast.
News helicopters circled the tower.
Audrey watched from her apartment.
Nathan sat beside her.
“You don’t have to watch.”
“I know.”
She watched anyway.
Declan spent forty-eight hours answering questions.
The evidence showed crimes.
Some were his.
Others belonged to men who had used his organization without his knowledge.
Declan refused to pretend innocence where it did not exist.
His attorneys negotiated cooperation.
He surrendered records.
Names.
Accounts.
Properties.
The city watched a supposedly untouchable man dismantle his own protection.
Audrey visited him on the third day.
He sat across from her in a private interview room.
No tailored jacket.
No guards.
No glass office.
Just Declan.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“You said that at the warehouse.”
“You ignored me then too.”
“I’ve developed the habit.”
A small smile appeared.
Audrey studied him.
“What happens?”
“Fines. Asset forfeiture. Probation if the agreement holds.”
“No prison?”
“Possibly not.”
She exhaled.
Declan noticed.
“You were worried.”
“Don’t become arrogant.”
“Too late.”
For a moment, they were themselves again.
Then Audrey became serious.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Give up everything.”
“You already know.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Declan looked down.
That was unusual enough to frighten her.
“When I saw you smiling that day, I thought someone was taking you from me.”
Audrey remained silent.
“I was furious.”
“I noticed.”
“But when you told me why you were smiling…”
He swallowed.
“I realized I was the thing you were escaping.”
Audrey’s eyes burned.
“That should have mattered to me four years earlier.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t change that.”
“No.”
“But I can stop being that man.”
Audrey stared through the glass wall.
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing.”
She looked back.
It might have been the most important answer he had ever given her.
Declan continued.
“You don’t owe me forgiveness. You don’t owe me visits. You don’t owe me love because I finally did one decent thing.”
Audrey’s throat tightened.
“And if I leave?”
“I’ll let you.”
“If I choose Nathan?”
His jaw moved.
Audrey almost smiled.
“That one hurt.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
Declan exhaled.
“But I’ll let you.”
Audrey stood.
She walked toward the door.
Then turned.
“Good.”
Declan nodded.
She left.
Two weeks later, Audrey moved to Chicago.
Nathan gave her an office overlooking the river.
On her first morning, her new title was printed beside the door.
AUDREY COLLINS
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
She stared at it for almost a minute.
No debt.
No contract binding her life to someone else.
No Declan.
She should have felt complete.
Instead, sometimes she missed the impossible man who drank terrible black coffee and pretended emotions were administrative errors.
Nathan never pressured her.
That made Audrey respect him even more.
One evening, he took her to dinner.
“I should tell you something,” he said.
Audrey looked up.
“I like you.”
“I know.”
“That obvious?”
“Painfully.”
He laughed.
“But you love him.”
Audrey’s smile disappeared.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
She looked outside.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“Then figure it out.”
“You’re surprisingly generous for a romantic rival.”
“I’m an excellent person.”
She laughed.
Nathan became serious.
“Just make sure you love who he is becoming, Audrey. Not who you hope he might become.”
That stayed with her.
Three months passed.
Declan never called.
Not once.
He sent no flowers.
No gifts.
No dramatic declarations.
He respected the boundary she had demanded.
Which somehow made her think about him more.
Then one morning, a package arrived.
Audrey stared suspiciously at it.
Inside was her grandmother’s necklace.
The one she had sold to pay the debt.
Beside it was her father’s antique watch collection.
Everything she had sacrificed.
A note lay beneath them.
Audrey unfolded it.
There were only two sentences.
These were never mine to keep.
No answer is required.
Audrey sat at her desk for a long time.
Then she opened her phone.
Her finger hovered over Declan’s number.
She did not call.
Instead, she booked a flight.
Destination:
New York.
May you like
Because according to the newspapers, Declan Mercer had disappeared from public life.
And Audrey suddenly wanted to know where he had gone.
