Chapter 8 - The Cornered Rat
By three o'clock that afternoon, the financial markets had delivered their verdict.
Sterling North Capital’s stock was down thirty-two percent. Two major pension funds had pulled their assets from the firm, citing "governance concerns." The board of directors had held an emergency noon session and unanimously voted to terminate Damian Cross immediately, stripping him of his unvested stock options and filing a formal complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding his credential fraud.
In a small, windowless office on the fourth floor of Sterling North’s Midtown headquarters, Damian was packing his things into a brown cardboard box.
His hair was unwashed, his tie hung loose around his neck, and his eyes were red-rimmed from stress and lack of sleep.
The door swung open.
Victoria Langford stood in the threshold, wearing a sharp black trench coat, her diamond-encrusted phone clutched in her gloved hand. She didn't step inside. She stood two feet away, looking at him as if he were a contagious disease.
"Victoria," Damian gasped, dropping a stack of leather notebooks into his box. He reached toward her, his face pale, desperate. "Thank God you're here. My phone has been ringing off the hook. My bank accounts... Vance had his legal team freeze my corporate accounts pending an audit. You need to talk to your father. If the Langford Group steps in with a public statement of support—"
"My father," Victoria interrupted, her voice dropping into a freezing, aristocratic register, "just cancelled my trust fund allowance for the month because I was seen in public with you last night."
Damian froze. "What?"
"The Langford Group pulled its real estate listings from Sterling North an hour ago, Damian," Victoria said, her eyes cold, devoid of the warmth she had shown him on the yacht six months ago. "You lied to me. You told me you were a senior partner track. You told me your ex-girlfriend was an uneducated leech who stalked you."
"She was!" Damian yelled, his hands shaking as he slammed them onto his desk. "She’s a nobody, Victoria! She’s playing Vance! She’s using him to get back at me!"
"She’s currently sitting in the private dining room at Le Bernardin with Julian Vance, the Mayor of New York, and the CEO of French Maritime," Victoria spat back. "The press is calling her the new darling of Manhattan society. And you... you are a fraud who couldn't even pay his own tuition without a coffee girl saving you."
"Victoria, please—"
"Don't call me," Victoria said smoothly, slipping her gold sunglasses over her eyes. "If you come within fifty feet of my family’s property, our security team has orders to have you arrested for trespassing."
She turned on her high heels and swept down the hallway without looking back.
Damian stood alone in his empty office. The brown cardboard box sat on his desk, holding three cheap pens, a plastic water bottle, and a framed photograph of himself standing on a yacht in Miami—a photo that Ava had taken six months before he dumped her.
His phone buzzed on the desk.
It was an automated alert from his bank:
ACCOUNT NOTICE: Your auto-pay rent transfer for $4,200.00 has been DECLINED due to insufficient funds.
Damian let out a choked, ragged sound that was half-sob, half-scream. He grabbed the heavy glass paperweight off his desk and threw it violently against the drywall, shattering the plaster into a cloud of white dust.
May you like
He had built his entire identity on being better than Ava Knox. He had spent four years using her as a footstool to climb into a world of wealth and power.
And now, with a single word from Julian Vance, he was right back where he started—broke, ruined, and completely alone in the cold dark of the city.
