Chapter 8 - The Ruin of Nathan Vance
Nathan saw his mother collapse onto the wood, saw his father kneeling in glass, and something in his fragile, privileged mind snapped.
"You bitch!" Nathan roared.
He lunged down the altar steps, his face twisted with pure, homicidal rage, his fingers hooked like claws aiming straight for my throat. "You ruined my life! You destroyed everything I built!"
He didn't make it two feet.
Alexander didn't flinch. He didn't even shift his stance.
With blinding, terrifying speed, Alexander stepped inside Nathan's clumsy swing, caught Nathan by the throat with one massive hand, and slammed him down onto the runner with an impact that shook the wooden pews.
Nathan gasped for air, his eyes bulging as Alexander stood over him, one polished Oxford shoe pinned firmly onto Nathan's chest, right over his heart.
"You will never speak to her again," Alexander said. The cathedral grew deathly cold. "You will never look at her. You will never say her name. If you so much as stand on the same city block as my wife, I will not use lawyers. Do you understand me, Nathan?"
Alexander pressed down slightly. Nathan let out a wheezing, desperate croak, his hands clawing at Alexander's leather shoe.
"Y-Yes... yes! Please!"
Sirens wailed in the distance.
The sound grew louder, screaming down Fifth Avenue, bouncing off the limestone buildings until the red and blue emergency lights flashed through the stained-glass windows of the church.
Four federal marshals, flanked by uniformed NYPD officers, pushed through the double doors.
The lead marshal held up a gold badge. "Nathaniel Vance? Arthur Vance?"
Alexander removed his foot from Nathan's chest and stepped back to my side, casually brushing an invisible speck of lint from his sleeve.
"They're all yours, Marshal," Alexander said smoothly. "The embezzled assets, the wire fraud documentation, and the physical assault charges are already logged with Central Booking."
The officers moved in with handcuffs.
Nathan sobbed hysterically as they hauled him up from the floor, his custom tuxedo ripped, snot and tears running down his face in front of the horrified socialites who had cheered for him half an hour earlier.
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Arthur didn't even fight. When the handcuffs clicked around his wrists, he looked like a hollowed-out corpse, his eyes vacant, his empire gone, dragged out of his son’s wedding like a common criminal.
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