Chapter 3 - The Subpoena and the Sabotage
The cousins, Preston and Brooks, were the next to fall. They were the ones who had grabbed my arms, laughed in my face, and physically dragged me to the edge of that freezing infinity pool. They thought they were untouchable frat boys, protected by the impenetrable shield of the Sterling family name.
They didn't realize that their entire livelihoods were constructed on a foundation of sand, and I had just brought in the tidal wave.
Preston and Brooks had been given "executive consulting" roles at Sterling Motor Group years ago. It was a classic nepotism setup; they collected six-figure salaries, drove company cars, and spent their days playing golf on the company dime without producing a single piece of actual work.
On Thursday morning, I executed a ruthless corporate purge. I didn't just fire them. I sent a team of corporate auditors, flanked by local law enforcement, directly to their luxury apartments, which were leased under the company's name.
I received the live updates from my security team while I was sitting in a high-level strategy meeting. At 9:00 AM, the police knocked on Preston’s door. When he answered, hungover and confused, he was handed an immediate eviction notice and a lawsuit for corporate fraud. The auditors seized his company-issued laptops, phones, and the keys to his company-leased Porsche.
Brooks experienced a similar rude awakening at his country club. He was in the middle of a tennis match when process servers walked directly onto the clay court and handed him a massive stack of legal documents.
But I wanted absolute, undeniable justice for the physical assault.
During the chaos of the Pebble Beach weekend, Julian’s father, Arthur, had been recording the entire pool incident on his phone, laughing as they shoved me into the water. When Arthur’s personal devices were subpoenaed during the corporate embezzlement investigation, my lawyers successfully argued that the video was vital evidence of the hostile environment and misconduct that triggered the shareholder clause.
Once we had the video, my legal team didn't just use it for the corporate takeover. We handed it directly to the local district attorney in Carmel.
On Friday afternoon, Preston and Brooks were officially arrested and charged with assault and battery. Because their bank accounts had been frozen by my audit, they couldn't afford their usual high-priced defense attorneys. They had to call Julian to bail them out, but Julian was busy hiding in a cheap motel, dodging calls from the SEC.
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The image of the two arrogant cousins being led out of a local precinct in handcuffs, wearing cheap sweatpants and looking absolutely terrified, made the local evening news. The anchor detailed the dramatic fall of the Sterling family, highlighting the assault on the female tech CEO who had secretly kept their legacy afloat.
Julian’s family had pushed me into the water expecting me to drown. Instead, I had become the leviathan that dragged them all down into the abyss.
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