Chapter 7 - The Final Gambit
At 2:00 PM on Friday afternoon, the rain was pouring over Manhattan.
Inside my office at Apex Capital, I was in the middle of a private video conference with our managing partners when Marcus knocked urgently on the glass door.
I paused the meeting and opened the door. “What is it, Marcus?”
“Julian,” Marcus said, his voice tense. “Derek is back downstairs. But this time he brought your mother.”
I frowned. “Vivian?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “She’s sitting in the lobby in tears, telling the front desk staff that she’s having a heart episode and refuses to leave until you come down. Security called an ambulance just in case, but she’s refusing medical transport unless you see her.”
I closed my eyes for three seconds, taking a deep, slow breath.
They were using their final card: public emotional manipulation in the middle of my corporate headquarters.
“Tell security to let them up to the forty-second floor conference room,” I said. “Not my office. The private board room.”
“Understood.”
Five minutes later, I walked into the large, glass-walled conference room.
Vivian sat at the head of the dark marble table, holding a tissue against her nose, looking small and fragile in a wet raincoat. Derek stood beside her, his arms crossed over his chest, trying to project a defiance he clearly didn't feel.
I sat down across from them, folding my hands over the polished stone table.
“You have five minutes,” I said flatly. “Before the building security escorts you out permanently.”
Vivian looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen. She reached across the table, her hands trembling as she tried to touch my arm, but I pulled my hand back slightly out of reach.
“Julian... please,” Vivian sobbed, her voice breaking. “Look at me. I’m your mother. I carried you for nine months. I raised you. How can you treat me like an enemy?”
“You treated Clara like a maid, Mom,” I replied softly. “When she was carrying your grandchild.”
“I was wrong!” Vivian cried out, throwing her hands in the air. “I admit it! I was arrogant, I was foolish, I was worried about silly things like cars and dinners! But please, Julian... don't take our home away! Don't ruin your brother’s life! We have nowhere to go!”
I looked at Derek, who was glaring at me with raw jealousy.
“Derek,” I said. “Is this your idea? Bringing Mom here to cry for you?”
“She’s not crying for me, she’s crying for our family!” Derek snapped. “You’ve cut off everything, Julian! My firm is bankrupt! Dad’s credit is destroyed! You’ve turned the whole town against us! What do you want from us? Do you want us to crawl on our knees and beg?”
I leaned forward, looking my brother dead in the eye.
“I don't want you to beg, Derek,” I said. “I wanted you to be an adult. I wanted you to take responsibility for once in your life. When you crushed Clara’s hand, all you had to do was apologize. All you had to do was show one second of genuine human care for my wife.”
Derek opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Instead,” I continued, “you complained about being late for dinner. You laughed while she cried on the pavement. And even now, sitting in this room, you’re not sorry for hurting her. You’re only sorry that your Range Rover got towed.”
The room went completely silent.
Vivian looked at Derek, then back at me, realizing with absolute, terrifying clarity that no amount of tears, guilt, or emotional performance would ever repair the bridge they had burned.
“Julian...” Vivian whispered, her voice barely audible. “Is there really nothing left between us?”
I stood up from my chair.
“The Oakridge house will be sold at auction in three weeks,” I said calmly. “I have set up a private trust account that will pay you and Dad twenty-five hundred dollars a month for living expenses, administered directly by Arthur Bell. You will have a roof over your heads and food on your table.”
Vivian gasped slightly, a faint flicker of hope in her eyes. “And Derek?”
I looked at my brother one last time.
“Derek is thirty-four years old,” I said. “He has a college degree and two working hands. He can get a job, pay his own rent, and buy his own car. He will not receive another cent from my estate for as long as I live.”
“Julian! You can’t leave me with nothing!” Derek screamed, stepping toward me.
Before he could reach the table, the conference room doors swung open.
Four uniformed NYPD officers and two building security guards stepped inside.
“Mr. Derek Vance?” the lead police officer said, stepping forward with a pair of handcuffs. “We have a warrant for your arrest issued by the Stamford Police Department for outstanding commercial fraud and unpaid corporate tax liabilities associated with your Stamford entity.”
Derek went completely rigid. “What? Fraud? No! That’s a mistake! Julian, tell them!”
The officer grabbed Derek’s arms, pulling them behind his back and clicking the steel cuffs over his wrists.
Vivian screamed, falling back into her chair as she watched her favorite son being handcuffed in front of corporate executives through the glass walls of the forty-second floor.
“Julian! Help him! Please!” Vivian shrieked.
May you like
I stood by the window, watching quietly as the officers ushered Derek out of the conference room.
“I already helped him, Mom,” I said softly to the empty room. “I stopped enabling him.”
