CHAPTER 5
At three o'clock that afternoon, I arrived at the high-rise corporate headquarters of Sterling & Carter Financial in downtown Greenwich.
The marble lobby was unnaturally quiet, the usual hum of analysts and trading desks replaced by a heavy, suffocating tension that hung over the entire building.
When I stepped out of the executive elevator onto the top floor, two armed federal agents in dark suits were standing outside Marcus Sterling's corner office.
Marcus was sitting at his glass conference table, surrounded by cardboard boxes, his tie undone, his hair disheveled, frantically shredding stacks of internal documents.
"Julian!" Marcus yelled the moment he saw me, dropping a pile of papers into the shredder as his eyes bulged with pure, unadulterated panic. "Your wife! That insane woman sent a complete audit package to the SEC and the Department of Justice!"
"I know, Marcus," I said, stepping into the room as the agents watched us with cold, calculating expressions. "She took Noah. She took everything."
"She destroyed us!" Marcus shrieked, slamming his fist onto the glass table, causing his water tumbler to shatter into sharp shards across the floor. "Vanessa has already fled her apartment! She's on a flight to Zurich right now, trying to clear the offshore accounts before the freeze orders go through!"
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"Vanessa fled?" I repeated, the last remaining pillar of my arrogance crumbling into absolute dust.
"She took her money and ran, you fool!" Marcus spat, pointing a trembling finger at my face. "While you were playing house with your mistress and ignoring your wife, Claire was dismantling our entire lives brick by brick!"
