Chapter 6 - THE CORNERED RAT
In the forty-eight hours following the Metropolitan Gala, the destruction of Nathaniel Ashford’s world was total.
The Sovereign Wealth Fund's blacklist hit the financial markets like an atomic bomb. Every bank in North America canceled Nathaniel’s credit cards, called in his personal loans, and froze his liquid assets. Arthur Caldwell, Vanessa’s father, suffered a nervous breakdown after his investment firm was liquidated to pay off debts, leaving the Caldwell family evicted from their Greenwich estate.
Vanessa, realizing that Nathaniel was now worse than penniless, fled to her aunt's house in upstate New York, refusing to take Nathaniel's frantic calls.
Driven mad by desperation, humiliation, and revenge, Nathaniel reached his breaking point.
It was a rainy Thursday evening. I was working late in my private office on the top floor of Ashford Global Tower. The building was mostly empty, the staff having gone home for the night. Only two security guards remained stationed in the ground floor lobby.
I was signing off on a new affordable housing initiative—a project my grandfather had always dreamed of—when the heavy oak doors of my office suddenly burst open.
I looked up.
Nathaniel stood in the doorway. He was drenched in rain, his eyes wild and bloodshot, his hair matted to his forehead. In his right hand, he held an old brass paperweight he had snatched from the lobby desk.
"Nathaniel," I said calmly, standing up from my desk but keeping my hands hidden near the silent panic button under the mahogany wood. "You are trespassing. Security has been called."
"Security isn't coming, Evelyn," Nathaniel sneered, his voice raspy and unhinged. He slammed the office door shut behind him and locked it. "I used the old service elevator. I know every hidden hallway in this building."
He took three slow steps toward my desk, breathing heavily.
"You took my company," he hissed. "You took my money. You destroyed my family name. You turned me into a laughingstock on national news!"
"You destroyed yourself, Nathaniel," I replied, keeping my voice utterly steady. "You chose to embezzle. You chose to cheat. You chose to humiliate me."
"I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO!" he screamed, shattering the quiet office space. He slammed his fist down on the glass display case near my desk, cracking it. "My mother built this legacy! You were supposed to be a quiet, timid little mouse who stayed home and shut her mouth! How dare you trick me!"
"I didn't trick you. My grandfather protected me from predators like you."
Nathaniel let out a bitter, psychotic laugh. He raised the brass weight in his hand, his knuckles white.
"It doesn't matter," he whispered, a dangerous, dark glint in his eyes. "If I can't have Ashford Global, neither can you. If you die tonight, Evelyn... the trust dissolves. The corporate governance falls back to the secondary heirs. To my mother."
My heart hammered against my ribs, but I did not let him see a single trace of fear on my face.
"You're going to murder me, Nathaniel? In my own office?"
"It won't look like murder," he gritted his teeth, taking another step closer. "It will look like a tragical fall from the 50th floor balcony. A depressed, stressed heiress who couldn't handle the pressure."
He lunged across the desk, grabbing my lapels with his free hand and pulling me toward him, raising the heavy brass object above my head.
"Say goodbye to your grandfather’s money, Evelyn!" he roared.
CRASH!
The heavy double glass doors of the executive office shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.
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Before Nathaniel could bring the weapon down, a dark figure blurred across the room. A powerful hand clamped around Nathaniel’s wrist like a steel vise, twisting it violently until the brass weight clattered harmlessly to the carpet.
A loud crack echoed through the room as Nathaniel let out a blood-curdling scream of pain.
