Chapter 7 - The Unraveling
Darius felt the air leave his lungs. He looked around the ballroom. The photographers were no longer taking photos of the stage; their lenses were focused entirely on him. High-profile investors who had clinked glasses with him an hour ago were backing away, turning their shoulders to isolate him.
“You ruined me,” Darius gasped, his voice shaking with violent, raw fury. “I built you! You were nothing before I married you! A nobody sitting in a cubicle! I made you who you are!”
“You didn't make me, Darius,” Noel said softly, her blue eyes icy and uncompromising. “You rode my coattails, stole my work, and thought you could beat me into submission so I would never have the courage to claim what was mine.”
Darius snapped. Blinded by fury, he lunged forward, raising his hand toward Noel’s face just as he had done at Atlas House.
“Don't touch her!” a officer barked.
Before Darius’s hand could make contact, the two police officers stepped in, grabbing Darius’s arms and twisting them behind his back. The metal click of handcuffs rang out sharp and clear over the quiet gasps of five hundred high-society guests.
Camera flashes exploded like strobe lights. Journalists rushed forward, their phones recording every second as Darius Holt—the golden boy of Chicago tech—was forced down onto his knees in the middle of the Drake Hotel ballroom, his tuxedo jacket riding up, his eyes wide with absolute, terrified disbelief.
“Darius Holt, you are under arrest for grand larceny, corporate fraud, and domestic battery,” the lead officer recited coolly, pulling Darius to his feet.
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Darius thrashed against the officer's grip, his face contorted in humiliation. “Noel! Tell them to stop! Noel, please! We can work this out! We’re married!”
Noel didn't flinch. She stood tall, watching as the police escorted her husband through the crowded room, past the flashing cameras, past the horrified eyes of the Chicago elite, and out into the cold night air.
