"I was going to have my process server leave this with your physical therapist on Monday, Ethan, but since you decided to embarrass me in front of Chad’s new investors, you might as well read it now," Brooke said, crossing her arms with a smug little smirk that made my blood boil.
I didn't even have to open the clasp to know what she’d been doing for the last eight months while I was trapped in an inpatient rehabilitation facility in Connecticut. Still, I slid the crisp legal papers out by a fraction of an inch.
Right on top was a Notice of Eviction and an HOA Board Resolution from the condominium association at 440 Greenwich Street—the six-million-dollar Tribeca penthouse I had bought in cash three years before I ever met Brooke. Beneath that was a deed transfer document transferring ownership of the unit from my personal revocable trust into a newly formed Delaware shell company called B&C Luxury Properties, LLC.
"How did you get past the escrow lock on the trust?" I asked, looking up at her with hollow, tired eyes—playing the exact broken, confused victim she expected me to be.
Brooke leaned down so close I could smell the Baccarat Rouge perfume she’d charged to my corporate American Express Centurion card two days ago. "You really think you’re the smartest guy in every room, don't you? Remember two years ago when you had your wisdom teeth taken out and you signed that limited medical and financial authorization so I could wire the earnest money for the Hamptons lot? You never filed the revocation form with your estate attorney, sweetheart. While you were doped up on fentanyl in the ICU, Chad’s cousin notarized an addendum giving me full signatory authority. We refinanced the penthouse through a private hard-money lender in Jersey, pulled out four million in equity, defaulted on the first two payments on purpose, and bought the distressed note ourselves under our new LLC for pennies on the dollar. As of five o'clock today, your key fob is deactivated, your Equifax score is 482, and your wheelchairs are sitting in black trash bags by the service alley dumpster."
She straightened up, smoothing the silk of her emerald gown, and walked back to Table 1 on Chad’s arm while the guests clapped for the upcoming charity auction.
I sat there by the kitchen doors, shivering in my soaked trousers, watching the woman who used to cry when she saw a stray dog in the rain laugh as Chad kissed her neck. Nobody in that five-million-dollar room looked my way. To them, Ethan Vance was dead weight—yesterday’s money, chewed up and spit out by the Manhattan machine.
Then, a warm, dry linen towel gently settled over my knees.
"I'm so sorry about them, sir. People in this room have a lot of money in their pockets and zero class in their souls," a quiet voice said.
I looked down. Kneeling on the cold marble beside my wheelchair was a young woman in a black catering uniform, her dark hair pinned back and a brass nametag reading Isabella pinned to her collar. She wasn't looking at me with disgusting pity or superiority; she was carefully dabbing the champagne off my jacket sleeve like I was royalty, completely ignoring her banquet manager who was glaring at her from the buffet line.
"Isabella! Leave him alone and clear Table 4, or I’m docking your shift pay!" the manager hissed under his breath.
Isabella didn't flinch. She pulled a bottle of sparkling water and a clean glass from her tray, handed it to me, and looked the manager dead in the eye. "Dock whatever you want, Marcus. I’m not leaving a human being sitting here covered in broken glass."
She reached down to pick up the manila envelope that had slid off my lap, handing it back to me with a warm, genuine smile. What Isabella didn't know—and what Brooke and Chad were about to find out the hard way—was that I hadn't needed this wheelchair for the last six weeks, and the encrypted burner phone vibrating inside my tuxedo pocket had just received the final confirmation from the FBI’s White-Collar Crime Division.
