Chapter 6 - The Rat Flees the Sinking Ship
By Thursday afternoon, the luxury estate in Dallas felt less like a home and more like a crime scene waiting for the investigators to arrive.
The security gates at the end of the long stone driveway were locked, but they didn't keep out the process servers, the couriers, and the creditors who spent the entire morning plastering legal notices across the double oak doors.
Inside the grand foyer, Tessa Langley was frantically throwing clothes into a Louis Vuitton garment bag while cursing under her breath. Her cream-colored cashmere coat was draped over a chair, looking slightly less pristine now that a splash of spilled scotch stained the hem.
Footsteps echoed sharply down the marble hallway, and Reid stormed into the foyer, his tie askew, his hair wild, his face pale and slick with nervous sweat.
"What are you doing?" Reid demanded, watching her toss a pair of Christian Louboutin heels into an open suitcase.
Tessa didn't even look up. "What does it look like, Reid? I’m getting out of here before the bailiffs arrive to repossess the furniture."
Reid grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. "Getting out? After everything I did for you? After I spent forty million dollars trying to settle that hospital mess so we could be together?"
Tessa jerked her arm out of his grip with a sharp, venomous laugh. "You spent forty million? Reid, are you delusional? You didn't have forty million! You had a revolving line of credit that some billionaire family just wiped out because you were stupid enough to beat up their only daughter!"
Reid flinched as if he had been slapped. "You lied to me! You threw yourself down those stairs to frame her!"
"Oh, please," Tessa sneered, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him with undisguised contempt. "You wanted to believe her! You hated Audrey because she was smarter than you, richer than you, and ten times the person you'll ever be. I just gave you the excuse you were looking for to get rid of her. Only you forgot one minor detail, darling: you picked a fight with an apex predator while you were just a guppy in a puddle."
"You selfish bitch," Reid hissed, lunging forward.
Before he could lay a hand on her, the front door swung wide open.
Marjorie Kessler stood on the threshold, her quilted Chanel bag clutched tightly against her stomach, looking as though she had aged ten years in the span of seventy-two hours. Her sensible low-heeled pumps clicked against the marble as she surveyed the chaos in the foyer.
"Stop this childish screaming immediately," Marjorie commanded, her voice trembling slightly despite her attempt at aristocratic composure. "The bank just called my house. They’re foreclosing on the trust distribution. They say our entire family portfolio was leveraged against Kessler Enterprises' operating loans."
Reid turned to his mother, his eyes wide with a desperate, pathetic pleading. "Mother... you have reserves, right? In the Swiss accounts? In the family foundation?"
Marjorie stared at him as if he were a stranger who had just tracked mud across her Persian rug. "The family foundation, Reid, was funded by Bellamy Global holdings fifty years ago. When Nolan Harris called me thirty minutes ago, he informed me that our family’s entire historical endowment has been officially terminated for breach of fiduciary ethics."
Tessa let out a sharp, hysterical bark of laughter, zipped her garment bag shut with a violent yank, and hoisted it over her shoulder.
"Well," Tessa said, stepping past Reid without a second glance, "it’s been real, boys. But I hear Miami is lovely this time of year, and I managed to fence those diamond earrings before the credit cards froze."
Reid watched in paralyzed silence as Tessa walked out the front door, slamming it shut behind her with a definitive, echoing bang.
May you like
Marjorie slowly sank onto the mahogany bench by the door, her head bowed, her hands trembling in her lap.
Reid stood alone in the center of the foyer, staring up at the grand staircase where Tessa had staged her fall just a few days ago. The security camera was still mounted above the landing, its little red light blinking steadily in the gloom, recording the exact moment his entire world collapsed into ash.
