CHAPTER 5
"I didn't know she was dying!" Julian yelled frantically, his voice cracking with pathetic desperation as tears welled in his red, bloodshot eyes. "My phone was on silent during the dinner meetings!"
"You were on a luxury yacht in Maui drinking two-thousand-dollar champagne with a junior associate," I corrected firmly, motioning for Arthur to hand the bailiffs the formal eviction notice. "And now, you are officially fired from Vanguard Tech."
Chloe gasped loudly, grabbing Julian's arm in sheer panic. "Wait! Fired?! Julian, you told me you owned the entire company outright!"
"Shut up, Chloe!" Julian snapped, shoving her hand away in a fit of wild, childish rage before turning back to face me. "Clarissa, you can't take my home! That mansion belongs to the Mercer family name!"
"Correction," Arthur interjected calmly, adjusting his reading glasses. "The mansion was purchased under the umbrella of Mercer Holdings LLC, which is now one hundred percent owned by Clarissa."
Julian staggered backward, his breathing heavy and ragged as the absolute finality of his total ruin settled over his shattered ego.
"You have two hours to retrieve your personal clothing from the guest house," I informed him flatly, standing up from the head of the conference table. "Everything else—including your sports cars, corporate accounts, and luxury memberships—has been seized by federal receivers."
"You ruined me..." Julian whimpered, burying his face in his trembling hands as his mistress silently backed out of the room, abandoning him on the spot.
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"No, Julian," I said, walking past him toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Chicago skyline. "You ruined yourself the moment you forgot who built the empire you were standing on."
As the bailiffs escorted the weeping, broken tech executive out of the suite, I took a deep breath, feeling a profound sense of peace wash over my soul.
