Chapter 9 - The Reckoning in the Alley
Two days later, Trevor sat on the dirty curb of an alleyway behind the Central District Police Precinct.
He was out on temporary bail—a bail paid for by selling his watch, his laptop, and the last of his clothes at a pawn shop. His Mercedes had been towed. His apartment locks had been changed. His face was plastered across the legal gazette and the local news as the corrupt junior associate who had embezzled hundreds of thousands from trust accounts.
He had nothing left. Not a dime.
He wore a dirty gray hoodie and torn jeans. His stomach groaned with intense, gnawing hunger. For the first time in his life, Trevor Sterling understood what it felt like to be entirely, completely destitute.
A sleek black Maybach glided silently to the curb at the mouth of the alley.
Trevor looked up, his heart skipping a beat.
The rear door opened. A man in a simple black suit stepped out, holding a manila envelope. It wasn't Roman. It was Julian, Roman’s chief of operations.
Julian walked into the alley, his polished shoes crunching over gravel, and stopped five feet away from Trevor. He dropped the envelope onto the curb beside Trevor’s dirty sneakers.
"What is that?" Trevor asked hoarsely, his voice cracked from lack of water.
"A receipt," Julian replied smoothly.
Trevor reached out with trembling, filthy hands and tore open the envelope. Inside was a bank deposit slip for exactly six hundred and forty-two dollars, transferred directly to an anonymous charity fund for homeless women. Attached to it was an official court summons for his arraignment on twenty-four counts of wire fraud and grand larceny.
"Mrs. Moretti wanted to ensure your debt to her was balanced on the ledger," Julian said, looking down at him with impassive detachment. "You took six hundred and forty-two dollars from her. That amount has been recovered from the liquidation of your luxury assets."
Trevor stared at the paper. A bitter, empty laugh escaped his lips. "She... she had her husband do all this over six hundred bucks?"
Julian tilted his head. "You still don't understand, do you?"
Trevor looked up.
"It was never about the money," Julian said quietly. "It was about the fact that Roman Moretti worships the ground that woman walks on. When you kicked her, you kicked the only thing in this entire city that keeps that man human. You are fortunate she has a merciful heart, Trevor. If it were up to Mr. Moretti alone, you wouldn't be sitting on this curb waiting for a trial. You would be resting at the bottom of the bay."
Julian turned on his heel and walked back toward the idling Maybach.
"Wait!" Trevor scrambled onto his hands and knees, crawling through the dirt. "Tell her I'm sorry! Tell her I know what I did! Please, ask her to tell the judge to drop the charges!"
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Julian didn't turn around. He climbed into the passenger seat, the heavy door thudding shut with a sound of finality. The Maybach pulled away, disappearing smoothly into the afternoon traffic, leaving Trevor kneeling in the dirt, clutching the summons that would seal him away behind iron bars for the next decade.
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