Chapter 3 - The Mistress's Demands, The Frozen Credit Cards, And The Terrifying Knock On The Door
By 8:00 AM the following morning, I hadn't slept a single minute. My eyes were bloodshot, my tie was crooked, and the half-empty bottle of scotch sitting on my credenza bore witness to a night spent spiraling into absolute panic.
I tried calling Corinne's personal cell phone fifteen times. Straight to voicemail.
I called her mother in Nashville. Her mother picked up on the first ring, listened to my frantic voice for exactly three seconds, and said, "You reap what you sow, you pathetic bastard," before slamming the phone down in my ear.
Then, my cell phone buzzed brightly against the mahogany desk.
I lunged for it, praying it was Corinne.
Instead, the screen flashed a picture of Tessa smiling brightly in a neon bikini against an ocean backdrop.
I swiped to answer, a wave of sudden, displaced irritation washing over me. "Tessa? Where are you? Listen, things here are completely insane—"
"Grant, baby, thank God!" Tessa's voice squealed through the speaker, high-pitched and frantic. "Listen, I'm still at the Four Seasons in Miami because my black card just got declined at the Prada boutique downstairs! The concierge is looking at me like I'm a criminal. Did you mess up the billing cycle on our shared account?"
I rubbed my throbbing temples, feeling a blinding headache spike behind my eyes. "Tessa, calm down. My personal and corporate accounts have been temporarily frozen due to a... a legal dispute with Corinne."
A sharp, defensive edge instantly cut through her voice. "A legal dispute?! What do you mean frozen? Grant, you promised me we were flying to Paris on Friday for my birthday shopping trip! You said your company was pulling in millions!"
"My company is currently being ripped apart by my wife’s family lawyers, Tessa!" I snapped, my temper finally snapping. "Corinne found out about everything. She knows about the Miami trips, she knows about the villa, she knows about the twenty-thousand-dollar diamond bracelet!"
Silence hung heavily over the phone line for three long seconds.
When Tessa spoke again, all the playful sweetness had evaporated, replaced by cold, venomous panic. "She knows? Well, fix it! Pay her off! Give her some money and divorce her like you promised you would months ago!"
"It's not that simple!" I yelled, standing up from my desk. "Corinne isn't just some ordinary woman! Her family owns Vance Global Steel! She controls my company, my assets, and my entire livelihood!"
"I don't give a damn about her family or her steel company!" Tessa shrieked hysterically. "You told me you were separating from her! You told me she was weak and dependent on you! If you can't even pay my hotel bill, what the hell am I even doing with you?!"
Click.
She hung up on me.
I stared down at the blank phone screen, a cold, hollow feeling hollowing out my stomach. In less than twenty-four hours, I had lost my wife, my newborn son, my multi-million-dollar corporate empire, and now, the mistress I had risked everything to maintain had abandoned me the second the money stopped flowing.
I was entirely, utterly alone.
Suddenly, a sharp, authoritative pounding echoed through the quiet house.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
It wasn't a gentle knock at the front door. It sounded like someone trying to kick the heavy oak panels inward.
My heart seized. I dropped the phone onto the desk, walked cautiously out of the home office, and crossed the marble foyer. I looked through the brass peephole.
Standing on my front porch wasn't Corinne. It wasn't the police.
It was three burly men in matching charcoal-grey bespoke suits, wearing dark sunglasses despite the overcast morning. Standing directly in front of them was a sharp-featured woman in her late forties carrying a heavy leather briefcase—Attorney Victoria Cross, the managing partner of Sterling, Vance & Cross, the most feared corporate litigation firm in the Midwest.
I slowly turned the deadbolt and pulled the heavy oak door open by a few inches, keeping the security chain latched.
"Can I help you?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound composed.
Attorney Victoria Cross didn't smile. She pulled a pristine manila legal document from her briefcase and held it up to the crack in the door.
"Mr. Grant Keaton," she announced, her voice ringing with icy corporate authority. "You are hereby served with an emergency federal subpoena and a mandatory asset-seizure notice on behalf of our client, Mrs. Corinne Vance-Keaton."
"Asset seizure?" I stammered, gripping the door edge. "On what grounds? I haven't even been given a chance to—"
"On the grounds of massive corporate embezzlement, fraudulent conveyance of marital assets, and systemic perjury," Victoria interrupted smoothly. "Furthermore, federal marshals are currently executing a search warrant at your secondary commercial properties in downtown Chicago and Ohio. Every single physical asset, luxury vehicle, and personal bank account registered under your name has been placed into court-mandated receivership."
The security chain on my door suddenly snapped with a loud, violent CRACK.
Before I could react, one of the burly men in the charcoal suit casually shoved the heavy oak door wide open, sending it crashing against the interior wall.
"Mr. Keaton," the attorney stated, stepping uninvited across my marble threshold, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. "You have exactly two hours to pack a single suitcase of personal clothing and vacate the premises. The house has been repossessed by the Corinne Vance Trust."
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I stood paralyzed in my own hallway, watching my life get systematically dismantled piece by piece.
And as Attorney Cross walked past me toward the living room, a terrifying thought echoed in my skull: This isn't just a divorce. This is an execution.
