Chapter 5 - The Collateral Damage
By Tuesday afternoon, the news had leaked to The Real Estate Journal and the business columns of the New York Post. Headlines blazed across digital feeds: DYNASTY FEUD AT HARTWELL PROPERTY: FOUNDER’S DAUGHTER TRIGGERS COURT RECEIVERSHIP IN HOLIDAY COUP.
My phone didn't stop buzzing for six hours straight. Industry titans, commercial lenders, and opportunistic rival developers were all calling to sniff around the carcass of what they assumed was a sinking ship. But as they quickly discovered when they spoke to Nathan or my newly appointed corporate communications team, the ship wasn’t sinking; it was being violently commandeered by the only person who actually knew how to navigate open waters.
Around four PM, the glass door to my temporary office—formerly my father’s sprawling corner executive suite—swung open without a knock.
It wasn’t my father. It was Brooke.
She looked like a disaster. Her designer blowout was limp and frizzy, her mascara was smeared in dark streaks down her flushed cheeks, and she was wearing an oversized designer hoodie that looked like it had been slept in for three days straight.
“You psychotic bitch!” Brooke screamed, lunging toward my desk before the two burly corporate security guards I had stationed outside my door intercepted her, pinning her arms back gently.
“Let me go! Let me go, you animals!” she shrieked, kicking her Golden Goose sneakers against the hardwood floor. She glared at me with pure, unadulterated venom. “How could you do this? Do you know what you’ve done? My credit cards are frozen! Mark’s BMW was repossessed out of our driveway an hour ago! The kids’ private school called and said our tuition check bounced!”
I didn't look up from the financial model on my dual monitors right away. I finished typing a cell formula, pressed Enter, and then slowly tilted my chair back, folding my hands in my lap.
“Your husband embezzled funds from a corporate entity I hold a thirty-five percent stake in, Brooke,” I said calmly, my tone as detached as if I were discussing weather patterns. “And you lived high on the hog off money that belonged to seventy hardworking employees and legitimate institutional investors.”
“We’re your family!” she wailed, tears finally breaking free in a pathetic, messy flood. “Dad built this for us! You were supposed to just... just fix the paperwork when things got messy! You weren’t supposed to take everything away!”
“That’s the problem, Brooke,” I said softly, standing up and walking slowly around the desk until I stood just a few feet away from her. “For thirty-four years, you and Mom and Dad treated me like the invisible utility worker who kept the lights on while you threw the party. You laughed at me while I worked sixty-hour weeks. You mocked my absence while I paid for your luxurious lifestyle.”
Brooke stopped struggling against the security guards for a second, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at me.
“How... how did you know about that?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“I was standing outside Apartment 304 on Christmas night,” I said evenly. “Six inches from the door. I heard every single word. Dad’s toast. Mom’s laugh. And your cute little punchline: ‘Nobody wants her here anyway.’”
Brooke’s face turned the color of curdled milk. The arrogance vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden, terrifying realization that the game of manipulating Sloane Hartwell was over forever.
“Sloane... please,” she whimpered, her voice cracking. “We’ll apologize. We’ll say we didn't mean it. It was just a stupid Christmas joke—”
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“It wasn't a joke, Brooke,” I said, turning my back on her and walking back toward my desk. “It was the truth. And now, you get to live in the reality of it.”
I raised my hand slightly. “Escort Mrs. Vance out of the building. And make sure her keycard access is permanently deactivated.”
