Chapter 4 - The Desperate Strike
The grand lobby of Harrington Global was a cavernous expanse of white marble, towering glass walls, and brushed steel. It was designed to intimidate, to make anyone who entered feel small and insignificant in the face of billion-dollar corporate power.
Grant Whitmore looked incredibly small.
He was standing near the security turnstiles, flanked by three massive security guards who looked like they were praying for him to give them a reason to tackle him to the floor. Grant was wearing yesterday’s clothes—a wrinkled designer suit that now smelled of stale sweat and desperation. He was clutching a thick, brown leather briefcase to his chest like a life preserver.
As Dominic and I stepped out of the private executive elevator, the lobby fell silent. Employees walking past slowed their pace, their eyes darting between the disgraced husband and the newly minted Senior Vice President.
Grant’s eyes locked onto me, wide and manic.
"Evelyn!" he shouted, trying to push past a security guard, only to be shoved firmly back. "Tell these gorillas to let me through! We need to talk, right now!"
I walked slowly across the marble floor, my heels clicking with a rhythmic, measured cadence. Dominic walked half a step behind me, a silent, looming guardian. I stopped ten feet away from Grant, keeping myself safely behind the security perimeter.
"We have nothing to talk about, Grant," I said, my voice echoing coldly in the vast lobby. "My lawyer informed you that all communication must go through his office. You are violating a direct legal instruction by being here."
May you like
"I don't care about the lawyers!" Grant spat, his face contorted in a mixture of rage and sheer panic. He held up the leather briefcase, shaking it at me. "You think you can just cut me off? Freeze my accounts? Change the locks on my house?"
"It is my house, Grant. The deed is in my name. And the accounts are frozen by court order because you are under investigation for federal wire fraud," I reminded him, speaking slowly as if explaining basic arithmetic to a toddler. "You are looking at twenty years in a federal penitentiary. The locks on a Tribeca loft are the least
