Chapter 3 - Handcuffs and Confessions

“Ethan Vance, you are under arrest for felony domestic battery, aggravated assault, and corporate fraud,” Marcus Vance declared, grabbing Ethan’s arm and pinning it behind his back.

SNAP.

The metallic sound of the handcuffs locking around Ethan’s wrist sent Beverly into a frenzy. “Get your hands off my son! Do you know who we are?! We are the Vances! We built this city!”

“Actually, Beverly,” my father, Arthur Sterling, spoke up, his voice heavy with contempt, “your late husband was a mid-level manager at my firm who died millions in debt. I paid off his debts out of pity twenty years ago. The only reason your son had a career was because Emily begged me to give him a chance. You didn't build anything. You’ve been living off my daughter’s charity.”

Beverly looked like she had been slapped. Her lips trembled, but no words came out.

Ethan struggled against the prosecutor’s grip, his eyes wide with wild terror. “Emily! Please! Look at me! Don't do this! We’re married! God joined us together! You can't ruin my life over a little fight!”

“A little fight?” I stepped right in front of him, raising my hand to point directly at my deep purple, swollen left cheek and the cut on my lip. “You cut my mouth with my own wedding ring, Ethan. You hit me four times because of coffee. And your mother sat there and enjoyed it.”

“I’ll go to rehab! I’ll go to therapy! Anything you want!” Ethan begged, tears finally streaming down his face, smearing his smug expression into pathetic terror. “I was wrong! I swear to God I was wrong!”

“You weren’t wrong, Ethan,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You were just stupid. You thought my silence was weakness. You thought my patience was submissiveness. But my father taught me one fundamental rule of business...”

I leaned into his ear and whispered: “Never interrupt your enemy while they are destroying themselves.”

Marcus Vance yanked Ethan toward the door. Two armed guards grabbed Beverly by her velvet elbows, forcing her out onto the porch alongside her crying son.

“Wait!” Beverly shrieked, kicking her heels against the stone steps. “Where am I supposed to go?! My clothes! My jewelry! Everything I own is in that house!”

“Correction,” Richard Hayes said, motioning to a team of movers arriving in a massive semi-truck behind the Escalades. “Every piece of jewelry, art, and furniture in this house was purchased with Sterling Global capital. It belongs to Emily. You have five minutes to take your personal hand luggage, or you leave in what you are currently wearing.”

As the police forced Ethan into the back of a squad car, he screamed my name through the rain, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the estate.

My father placed a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder. “Are you alright, my child?”

I looked down at my swollen hand, touching the plain gold wedding band on my finger.

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“Not yet, Father,” I whispered. “He hasn’t paid the real price yet.”

CHAPTER 3 HOOK: Arthur Sterling smiled—a dark, ruthless smile that explained why he had ruled the financial world for forty years. “Then let’s move to Phase Two. Call the District Attorney. Tell him it’s time to unseal the files on the Vance family secret.”