Chapter 6 - The Public Meltdown
By the next morning, news of the mysterious incident at the Greenwich estate began to leak.
In high-society Connecticut circles, gossip travels faster than wildfire. Garrett, who had spent years posturing as a self-made tech mogul on LinkedIn and Instagram, had made plenty of enemies with his arrogant behavior and condescending attitude.
At 10:00 AM, a local news helicopter was buzzing overhead, taking aerial footage of the massive Greenwich mansion. The local local tabloid headline read:
"GREENWICH TECH MOGUL STRIPPED BARE: APEX LOGISTICS EXECUTES MIDNIGHT REPOSSESSION ON $10M ESTATE."
Outside the wrought-iron security gates, a crowd of reporters and local paparazzi had gathered.
Inside the mansion, conditions had descended into absolute chaos.
Garrett and Delilah had spent twenty-four hours in the freezing house with no electricity, no running hot water, and no food. The smell of spoiled meat and sour milk was beginning to leak through the seals of the locked Sub-Zero refrigerator, filling the empty kitchen with a sickening stench.
Delilah was hysterical. Her hair was matted, her expensive clothes were rumpled, and her lips were blue from the cold.
"Garrett! I can't take this anymore!" she screamed, slapping his arm violently. "My back aches from sleeping on the wooden floor! I'm starving! We have to leave!"
"We can't leave, Mom!" Garrett shouted back, his eyes bloodshot and unhinged. "If we leave the grounds, the security gates will lock us out forever! Everything I have left is in this house!"
"There is NOTHING in this house!" Delilah shrieked, gesturing wildly at the empty walls. "She took everything! She even took the light switches!"
Driven by sheer delusion and desperate pride, Garrett decided to make a fatal mistake. He grabbed his old secondary tablet, which still had 10% battery life, connected to a weak cellular hotspot, and went live on social media.
Standing in the center of the vast, empty living room, Garrett faced the camera, trying to force a look of tragic martyrdom.
"To all my followers and business associates," Garrett began, his voice trembling dramatic anger. "I am broadcasting live from my home in Greenwich. My wife, Victoria Sterling, has suffered a severe mental breakdown. Last night, while my elderly mother and I were sleeping, she hired illegal operators to break into our home and steal all our worldly possessions."
He turned the tablet camera around, panning across the stark, empty room.
"Look at this!" Garrett yelled to the three thousand viewers who had rapidly joined the livestream. "She left us in freezing temperatures with no food, no furniture, and no human dignity! She chained our refrigerator shut to starve my mother! This is a criminal act of domestic terrorism!"
The comment section on the stream exploded with shock and confusion:
@TechBro99: "Yo, is that the mansion on Estate Way?! It's completely gutted!"
@CT_Journal: "Wait, isn't Victoria Sterling the CEO of Apex Logistics?!"
@LuxeLife: "Why is there a chain on the fridge though? LOL!"
Garrett grinned inwardly, believing he was successfully spinning the narrative and weaponizing public sympathy against me.
"I am asking the public for help!" Garrett pleaded into the camera. "Victoria Sterling is a monster who uses her corporate power to abuse her family—"
Suddenly, the front doors of the mansion were pushed open with a loud bang.
Four process servers in dark suits walked into the room, accompanied by two armed private security guards from Apex Logistics. Leading them was my senior legal counsel, Arthur Pendelton.
"Garrett Vance?" Arthur called out, his voice echoing loudly through the empty space.
Garrett blinked, holding the tablet up to stream the interaction. "Get out of my house! You're trespassing on private property!"
Arthur didn't even flinch. He walked right up to Garrett, pulled a massive stack of legal documents out of his briefcase, and slapped them firmly against Garrett’s chest.
"Garrett Vance, you have officially been served," Arthur announced in a loud, clear voice that was picked up perfectly by the tablet microphone for thousands of viewers to hear.
"Served with what?!" Garrett yelled, dropping the tablet slightly.
Arthur turned directly toward the camera lens, smiling with cold, professional authority.
"You are being served with a formal Petition for Absolute Divorce on the grounds of marital fraud and emotional abuse," Arthur declared calmly. "Additionally, you are served with a Federal Lawsuit for corporate embezzlement totaling $1.4 million, and a formal Eviction Order issued by the State of Connecticut."
The live chat on Garrett’s stream went absolutely insane:
@WallStreet_Dave: "EMBEZZLEMENT?! $1.4 MILLION?!"
@GreenwichGossip: "HOLY SHIT! HE EMBEZZLED FROM HER COMPANY?!"
@Sarah_P: "Served live on stream! This is legendary!"
Garrett’s face turned from pale white to bright red. "That's a lie! I didn't embezzle anything!"
"Every receipt from your mother’s luxury trips to Paris, your private wine purchases, and your personal stock accounts funded by Apex Corporate Accounts has been submitted to the District Attorney," Arthur replied coolly. "You have sixty minutes to vacate this corporate facility. If you are on the property past 1:00 PM, you will be arrested for criminal trespassing."
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Delilah let out a high-pitched scream and collapsed onto the bare floor in a pathetic heap.
Garrett stood paralyzed, holding the thick stack of legal papers, as the live view count on his stream hit fifty thousand people—watching his ultimate, humiliating downfall in real time.
