Chapter 5 - The Ledger of the Vances
Downstairs in the private holding office behind the Ashworth Grand’s lobby bar, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
The room had no windows. The walls were lined with dark walnut paneling, and a single brass lamp illuminated a large mahogany desk in the center.
Cordelia Vance sat in a leather armchair, her arms crossed tightly over her red silk dress. Beside her stood Harlan Vance—a handsome, thirty-two-year-old man with slicked-back blond hair and a four-thousand-dollar suit, his face flushed with fury.
Standing near the locked door was Richard Vance, Cordelia’s father.
Richard was sixty-two, a heavyweight in the city's real estate market, but tonight he looked fifteen years older. He stood with his hands tucked into his trousers, his eyes fixed on the door, sweat glistening along his receding hairline.
"This is ridiculous, Father!" Harlan barked, pacing across the carpet. "We've been locked in this room for forty minutes! I don't care who this Calloway guy thinks he is! I'm calling the District Attorney right now!"
"Shut your mouth, Harlan!" Richard Vance snapped, his voice sharp and laced with pure terror.
"Why?!" Harlan yelled. "Cordelia pushed a pregnant waitress! So what?! We give the girl ten thousand dollars, fire her, and move on! This thug has no right to hold us here!"
Cordelia looked up, her voice trembling slightly despite her best efforts to sound composed. "Father... who is he really? The manager looked at him like he was... like he was a king."
"He isn't a king, Cordelia," Richard whispered, his voice shaking. "Kings have rules. Kings have parliament. Royce Calloway owns the men who enforce the law. If he wants to erase us tonight, our bodies will be at the bottom of the lake before sunrise, and the police will report it as a tragic boating accident."
The iron lock in the door clicked.
The door swung open smoothly.
Royce Calloway walked into the room. He had removed his suit jacket, wearing only his dark waistcoat and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark, coiling tattoos that covered his wrists.
Behind him walked Leo, carrying a thick black leather binder.
Harlan Vance opened his mouth to speak, but Royce didn't even look at him.
Royce walked straight to the mahogany desk, sat down in the high-backed chair, and pointed a single finger at the floor in front of him.
"Sit," Royce said flatly.
Richard Vance immediately grabbed his daughter and future son-in-law by their shoulders, forcing them into the chairs opposite the desk.
"Mr. Calloway," Richard began, his voice raspy and desperate. "I am deeply, terribly sorry for my daughter's behavior tonight. She was... she was intoxicated. She didn't realize who the girl was—"
"She didn't need to know who she was," Royce interrupted, his gray eyes fixing on Cordelia like two steel spikes. "She was a pregnant woman serving drinks in my house. And your daughter drove her head into a mirror."
Cordelia swallowed hard, her confidence entirely evaporated. "I... I will pay for the mirror. And the dress. I’ll pay the girl fifty thousand dollars—"
Royce leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk.
"You don't have enough money to buy what you broke tonight, Miss Vance," Royce said softly.
He motioned to Leo, who opened the thick leather binder on the desk.
"This is the financial audit of Vance Development Corporation," Royce said smoothly, turning a page. "It details twenty-four million dollars in off-shore tax evasion, three bribes paid to the port authority inspector, and two arson fires set in the lower East Side to clear rent-controlled tenants."
Richard Vance’s face turned grey. "Where... how did you get that?"
"I own your accountant, Richard," Royce said simply. "I’ve owned him for five years."
He turned another page.
"And this," Royce continued, looking at Harlan, "is a record of your gambling debts to the syndicate in Atlantic City. Three million dollars, past due since last Tuesday. They were going to take your kneecaps next week, but I bought your paper thirty minutes ago."
Harlan choked on his own breath, his eyes wide with absolute horror.
"So here are the terms," Royce said, his voice dropping into a register that chilled the blood in the room. "First, Vance Development will transfer fifty-one percent of its voting stock to a blind trust held in the name of Della Marsh."
Richard gasped. "Fifty-one percent?! That’s... that’s my entire life's work!"
"Then you can keep forty-nine percent of something, or one hundred percent of a twenty-year prison sentence," Royce replied flatly. "Second, Harlan will sign over his estate in the suburbs to the same trust."
"And third?" Cordelia whispered, her tears finally overflowing.
May you like
Royce looked at her, his expression entirely devoid of mercy.
"Third," Royce said softly, "you will go on your knees to the penthouse suite, you will look Della Marsh in the eyes, and you will beg her for forgiveness. If she accepts, you leave this city before midnight and never return. If she refuses... Leo will show you what happens to people who touch what belongs to me."
