Chapter 5 - The Glass Mask Cracks
I didn't go to Tessa’s apartment that night.
As much as every fiber of my being screamed to run to Border Street and hold my two sons in my arms, Tessa needed time. She had lived under the terror of Eleanor's threat for eighteen hundred days; she couldn't simply flip a switch and feel safe.
"Let me prepare them," she had begged me in the diner parking lot, her eyes swollen, holding a cup of hot coffee I had bought her. "They know their father is 'an angel who had to go far away.' That's what I told them so they wouldn't feel abandoned. If you show up out of nowhere with guards and expensive clothes, you’ll terrify them."
"Tomorrow morning," I promised, pressing an envelope containing ten thousand dollars in cash into her hands. When she tried to push it back, I held her wrists firmly. "This isn't Mercer charity, Tessa. This is four years of back-pay child support that was stolen from my sons. Buy them groceries. Pay the landlord. Buy Toby the medicine for his fever. I’ll be there at ten."
Now, it was 8:00 PM.
I stood in the entryway of the four-thousand-square-foot penthouse in the Back Bay that I shared with Brielle Vance.
The apartment was a masterpiece of modern minimalism: polished concrete floors, floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the Charles River, white linen sofas that looked like museum exhibits. It was cold. It had always been cold.
Brielle was sitting on the sofa, a glass of Pinot Noir in her hand, talking softly on her cell phone.
"...yes, Eleanor. He hasn't answered his office phone either. Richard needs to make sure the Logan shift manager signs the non-disclosure agreement immediately. If the press gets wind of—"
She stopped.
She saw me standing in the foyer, my coat draped over my arm.
Brielle lowered the phone slowly. "Grant?"
"Hang up the phone, Brielle."
Her chest rose and fell beneath her silk camisole. "Eleanor, I have to call you back." She tapped the screen, set the phone on the marble coffee table, and stood up, offering me a tight, rehearsed smile. "Darling! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick! I made reservations at Mistral, but I had to cancel—"
"Five hundred thousand dollars," I said, walking slowly into the living room.
Brielle froze. The smile remained plastered on her face, but her eyes turned glassy. "What?"
"November 14th, five years ago. Wire transfer number 884-Bravo. From my private account at Boston Private Bank to *Vance Holdings LLC*."
The color evaporated from Brielle’s lips.
"Grant, that was... that was an investment syndicate. My father was handling a commercial real estate fund in Cambridge—"
"Your father used it to buy thirty-second television spots for his judicial campaign," I interrupted, my voice terrifyingly calm. I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the bank transaction ledger Marcus had printed, and tossed it onto the coffee table next to her wine glass. "And in exchange, Judge Vance signed off on the sealed probate order that stripped Tessa Ward of every legal right she had as my wife."
Brielle backed away until her legs hit the edge of the sofa. "Grant, you don't understand the pressures our families were under! Your mother—"
"Did you know she was pregnant?"
The question hung in the cavernous, high-ceilinged room like an executioner's axe.
Brielle swallowed hard. Her throat clicked. "No."
"Look me in the eye and tell me that, Brielle."
"I didn't!" she cried, her voice cracking. "I swear I didn't know until... until after the papers were signed!"
"Which means you knew!" I roared, the composure snapping. "You knew for four years! You slept in my bed! You wore my ring! You smiled at my mother’s Sunday dinners while my sons were living in a mold-infested three-decker in East Boston! You let her clean airport bathrooms!"
"She was nobody!" Brielle screamed, the polished aristocratic veneer shattering into ugly, hysterical jagged pieces. "She was a waitress from a broken family in Southie! She didn't belong in your world, Grant! She was dragging you down! Your mother knew it, my father knew it, everyone knew it! You were meant for something bigger! We were meant to consolidate the firms! Do you think any woman of our standing would have let you throw away a three-hundred-million-dollar merger for a girl who smelled like diner coffee?"
I stared at her.
I felt no anger anymore. Only a profound, bottomless disgust.
I walked over to the coffee table, picked up her half-full wine glass, and tipped it over. The dark red liquid pooled across the white marble, dripping onto the pristine gray wool rug like arterial blood.
"Take off the ring," I said.
Brielle stared at the dripping wine, then up at me, trembling. "Grant... please. Think about what you're throwing away. My father is on the Supreme Court. Eleanor controls thirty percent of Mercer Capital's voting shares. If you break this engagement, they will destroy you. They will remove you as CEO before the markets open on Monday."
"Take off the ring, Brielle. Or I call the U.S. Attorney’s office right now and hand them the paper trail linking your father’s campaign to the offshore accounts."
Brielle’s eyes widened in sheer terror.
Slowly, with trembling, unmanicured fingers, she slid the three-carat diamond off her left ring finger. She set it on the wine-stained marble.
May you like
"You have one hour to pack your clothes," I said, turning my back on her. "If you are still in this building at nine o'clock, the building security will escort you to the curb in your underwear. And tell your father to start looking for a very good criminal defense attorney."
***
