Chapter 3 - The Architect
Clare looked at the dark stain spreading across the floor.
She looked at her cheating husband, who believed he was a god. She looked at his mistress, who was already fixing her lipstick in the reflection of the glass wall.
Then, Clare stopped trembling.
The quiet, domestic fog she had worn for fifteen years evaporated in a single, terrifying heartbeat. The woman who had counted the minutes that morning disappeared. In her place stood the woman Margaret Reed had been waiting for.
Clare reached into her purse, bypassed the tissues, and pulled out her phone. She hit a single speed-dial number.
"Margaret," Clare said, her voice dropping into a register of lethal, absolute calm that made Ethan’s brow furrow in confusion. "I'm in the hallway outside his office. Are you in the boardroom?"
"I am sitting at the head of the table, my dear," Margaret Reed’s gravelly voice crackled through the speaker. "Are we executing?"
"We're executing," Clare decreed. "Total liquidation."
She hung up.
Ethan let out a sharp, condescending laugh. "Clare, what is this? Who are you calling? Stop embarrassing yourself."
Clare didn't answer him. She didn't look at him. She simply stepped over the ruined pot roast and walked past him, heading straight for the main glass boardroom.
"Clare! Stop!" Ethan snapped, his arrogance finally giving way to a flicker of unease. He chased after her, Chloe trailing nervously behind. "You can't go in there! The Halverson executives are in there!"
Clare pushed the double glass doors open.
The boardroom was packed with twenty men in expensive suits. Sitting at the absolute center of power, at the head of the mahogany table, was Margaret Reed, tapping a gold pen against a stack of legal documents.
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"Security!" Ethan barked, rushing into the room. "Get her out of here! I apologize, gentlemen, my wife is having a—"
"Your wife," Margaret Reed interrupted, her voice cracking like a whip, "is the only reason anyone in this room has a job."
