Chapter 6 - The Return to the Boardroom
Two weeks later, the corporate offices of Vanguard Digital Solutions—formerly Evelyn’s Creative Marketing—looked shinier, colder, and far more ostentatious than they had when I built them.
The glass walls were cleaner, the minimalist white furniture screamed corporate greed, and the receptionist at the front desk was a young woman with slicked-back blonde hair who looked like she practiced her condescending smile in the mirror every morning.
“Can I help you?” she asked, not looking up from her tablet as I walked through the double glass doors.
I didn't answer right away. I was wearing a sharply tailored, charcoal-gray Chanel pantsuit that Nathan had helped me purchase using a small cash advance from liquidating an old stock portfolio he had managed to keep hidden from Michael's legal dragnet. My hair was cut into a sleek, razor-sharp bob, and my sunglasses rested high on the bridge of my nose. I looked less like an ex-con stepping out of a three-year nightmare and more like a hostile corporate raider ready to swallow a Fortune 500 company whole.
I removed my sunglasses and looked her dead in the eye.
“Tell Michael Vance that Evelyn is here for her morning meeting,” I said smoothly.
The receptionist blinked, her fingers freezing over the glass screen. She looked up, squinting as if trying to place my face from a distant memory, a mugshot, or a nightmare. Before she could stammer a response, the frosted glass door of the corner office swung open.
Michael stepped out.
He had changed. He wore a bespoke Italian suit, his hair was styled with expensive product, and a Rolex gleamed on his wrist. But the moment his eyes locked onto mine, the color drained entirely from his face, just like it had in the bedroom three years ago.
The tablet slipped from the receptionist’s hands, hitting the floor with a sharp plastic clatter.
“Evelyn?” Michael whispered, his voice hitching in his throat. He took a staggering step backward, nearly tripping over the sleek modern reception desk. “No. That’s... that’s impossible. You’re... you’re supposed to be in Hartwell for another three years!”
“Good behavior, Michael,” I smiled, stepping forward with slow, deliberate grace, my heels clicking sharply against the polished concrete floor. “Turns out prison teaches you a lot about patience. And corporate law.”
“Security!” Michael shouted, his voice cracking with rising panic, turning to look wildly around the empty lobby. “Security, get this woman out of my building right now!”
“Your building?” I stopped five feet away from him, tilting my head with amusement. “Michael, darling, look at the incorporation papers filed under the state business registry this morning. Nathan helped me file an emergency motion for asset recovery based on newly discovered cryptographic audit logs proving corporate fraud and evidentiary manipulation.”
Michael’s eyes bulged. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” I reached into my designer handbag, pulled out a thick, heavy manila envelope stamped with the official seal of the New York State Supreme Court, and tossed it lazily onto his chest. It hit him like a brick, sliding down his expensive suit to land at his polished leather shoes.
“That’s an injunction freezing every corporate account, every personal asset, and every single cent of venture capital funding currently tied to Vanguard Digital Solutions,” I said, my voice dropping an octave, cold and venomous. “Including the wedding fund you’ve been pooling with Lauren.”
At the mention of Lauren’s name, the glass doors behind me swung open again.
Lauren walked in carrying two iced lattes, dressed in an expensive white designer dress, laughing brightly as she talked on her phone. She stopped dead in her tracks. The plastic cups slipped from her fingers, shattering against the concrete floor, sending white liquid and dark coffee spraying across her pristine white shoes.
May you like
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Hello, Lauren,” I smiled, stepping past my trembling, ruined ex-husband and walking straight into the corner office that used to be mine. “Hope you saved some of that wedding money. Because by tonight, you won't even be able to afford a cup of coffee.”
