Chapter 5 - The Collapse of the Kingdom
The next ten minutes felt like a slow-motion car crash. The two state investigators entered the office, served Dean with a formal arrest warrant for felony document forgery and corporate fraud, and placed him in handcuffs right in front of his entire staff.
"Vanessa! Call my dad! Call Marjorie!" Dean screamed as he was led out of the glass office, his polished shoes scuffing against the floor. "Natalie, you can't do this! We have a son!"
"I know we have a son," I said, my voice finally dropping its icy professional edge, leaving only the raw, protective instinct of a mother. "And that's exactly why you're never going to see him from anywhere other than a glass partition in a visitation room. You tried to steal his home, his stability, and his mother. You reap what you sow, Dean."
Vanessa tried to slip out of the office behind the investigators, but Robert blocked the door with his arm.
"Miss Miller," Robert said, referring to her by her legal last name. "Don't run off just yet. As the named beneficiary of the 'Aegis Trust' that Dean set up using the forged documents, you are officially listed as a co-conspirator. There's a patrol car waiting for you downstairs."
Vanessa burst into tears, her face collapsing as she realized the glamorous life she had traded her integrity for was nothing but a mirage built on quicksand. "I didn't know! He told me he was a millionaire! He told me she was crazy!"
"The only crazy thing I did was believe in him for a single second," I said, walking past her without a backward glance.
As I walked out of the building, the employees of Prescott North were standing in the bullpen, completely lost. My husband had destroyed their livelihoods in his pursuit of vanity and greed.
I stopped at the receptionist's desk, picked up the PA microphone, and cleared my throat.
May you like
"Attention, everyone," my voice boomed through the speakers. "Prescott North Creative is officially closing its doors as of today. However, N.P. Holdings is opening a new design firm on the first floor starting Monday morning. Every single one of you has a job offer waiting in your inbox right now with a fifteen percent raise. The only person who won't be joining us is the man who thought he could build a kingdom on a lie."
The bullpen erupted into spontaneous applause, some of the older designers wiping tears of relief from their eyes. They knew who had really been running the place all along.
