Chapter 5 - The Reckoning and the Freefall
The VIP private lounge behind the Grand Ballroom was silent save for the hum of the climate control and the distant, muffled rumble of the orchestra outside.
Alexander burst through the double doors, his bow tie undone, his face flushed a furious, mottled crimson.
"Evelyn!" he roared.
Two private security guards in charcoal suits moved to intercept him instantly, their hands crossing smoothly over their jackets.
"Let him in," a calm voice commanded from the shadows near the terrace doors.
The guards stepped aside without a word.
Evelyn stood near the tall French windows that looked out over the Chicago skyline, a glass of mineral water in her hand. Julian Rhodes sat on the low leather sofa nearby, an open iPad resting on his knee, his expression unreadable.
Alexander stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving as if he had run five miles through wet snow.
Behind him, Vanessa Cole slipped into the lounge, her face pale, her knuckles white as she clutched her silver designer clutch like a life preserver.
"What is this?" Alexander demanded, pointing a shaking finger at Evelyn. "What the hell is this, Evelyn? Is this a joke to you? You played me? For three years, you lied to me about who you were?"
Evelyn didn't turn around immediately. She took a slow sip of her water, watched a commuter train cross the distant elevated bridge toward the South Side, and then turned to face him.
The Sterling Sapphire caught the low lamp light, burning with a deep, merciless blue fire.
"I never lied to you, Alexander," she said softly. "Not once."
"You told me your name was Evelyn Carter!"
"My name *is* Evelyn Carter," she replied. "My grandfather was Henry Sterling Carter. My mother was Sarah Sterling. I never hid my name. You simply never asked what the middle initial stood for because you were too busy explaining your seed rounds to the waiter."
"You let me believe you had nothing!" Alexander’s voice cracked, rising into an unstable, frantic register. "You lived in that tiny apartment! You drove that piece-of-shit Volvo! You let me pay for our dinners!"
"You paid for dinner four times in three years, Alexander," Evelyn said, her voice dropping into a register so cold, so quiet, that it made the hairs on Alexander's arms stand up. "And each time, you spent forty-five minutes complaining about the city tax before asking me to cover the tip."
Vanessa stepped forward, her social poise completely shattered, her voice shrill and trembling with rage.
"You did this on purpose," Vanessa hissed, her eyes wild. "You set him up! You set both of us up! You used your family’s money to manipulate Crestview into calling that debt facility! That's market manipulation! My father will have the SEC in your offices by nine o'clock tomorrow morning!"
Julian Rhodes let out a short, quiet laugh from the sofa.
He didn't even look up from his screen. "Vanessa, your father doesn't have the authority to call an elevator at the Board of Trade, let alone the Securities and Exchange Commission."
Julian turned the screen of his iPad toward them.
"At four-fifteen this afternoon," Julian said casually, "Sterling Intermodal acquired seventy-two percent of the senior secured paper of Cole Cold Storage from the Bank of Ohio for sixteen cents on the dollar."
Vanessa went entirely rigid. "What?"
"Your father is insolvent, Miss Cole," Julian continued smoothly. "He has been insolvent for fourteen months. He was counting on Alexander’s Series B to provide him with an emergency management fee to service his junior mezzanine debt. But unfortunately, there is no Series B."
Alexander looked between Julian and Evelyn, the reality of his situation beginning to penetrate the dense, calcified wall of his vanity.
"Ev," Alexander stammered, taking a step toward her, his hands coming up in a desperate, pleading gesture. "Ev, listen to me. Okay? Just... just breathe for a second. We can talk about this. We have history. Three years! You know me! You know how much pressure I was under with the launch! I made a mistake at the Hawthorne. I was confused! The media, the investors—they were pushing me to create an image, to build a narrative—"
"A narrative?" Evelyn asked.
She set her water glass on the side table. The tiny *clink* was the only sound in the vast room.
"You stood on a raised platform, Alexander. You took a microphone in your hand. You looked into my eyes, in front of two hundred people who trusted you, and you told me that I was an unproductive liability who didn't belong in your world."
"I was stupid!" Alexander cried, tears of pure, unadulterated terror finally breaking into his eyes. "I didn't mean it! Ev, I love you! I’ve always loved you! Vanessa was a distraction—she meant nothing to me! It was just business! Ask her! Tell her, Vanessa!"
Vanessa looked at Alexander with an expression of such pure, visceral disgust that she looked as if she were about to be physically sick. "You pathetic coward," she spat.
Evelyn walked slowly toward Alexander.
She stopped three feet away from him. For a split second, Alexander thought she was going to reach out. He thought she was going to touch his cheek, to forgive him, to be the sweet, accommodating girl who had ironed his shirts before his first demo day.
Instead, she looked down at his breast pocket.
"The Crestview debt facility expires at midnight," Evelyn said, her voice flat, clear, and final. "Arthur Vance has already filed the UCC liens with the Delaware Chancery Court. By morning, Sterling Global will take possession of Blackwood Dynamics' routing engine, its patents, and its master server clusters."
"You can't do that," Alexander whispered, his knees trembling. "That's my company. I built that code. That’s my life, Evelyn. You're leaving me with nothing."
"You have your suit, Alexander," Evelyn said, echoing the words James had spoken in the Lincoln four nights ago. "Though if memory serves, I paid for the tailoring on that as well."
She turned her back on him and walked toward the terrace doors.
"Julian," Evelyn said without looking back. "Have security remove Mr. Blackwood and Miss Cole from the premises. They don't have credentials for the private lounge."
"Evelyn! Evelyn, please!" Alexander screamed as the two charcoal-suited guards seized his arms, twisting him around with mechanical efficiency. "You can't do this to me! You owe me! EVELYN!"
The heavy oak doors of the private lounge swung shut, cutting off his frantic, screeching voice mid-syllable.
Silence returned to the room.
Julian stood up from the sofa, walked over to the terrace doors, and stood beside her. Outside, the lights of Chicago stretched into the dark, clean horizon of the lake, endless, cold, and free.
"Are you alright?" Julian asked quietly.
Evelyn took a deep, clean breath.
For the first time in three years, there was no weight on her chest. There was no knot in her throat. There was no ghost in the room asking her to be smaller than she was.
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"I’m extraordinary, Julian," she said, and for the first time all evening, her smile was genuine, radiant, and warm. "Now, let's go back out there. We have an empire to run."
***
