Chapter 8 - The Ruin Of Drake Capital
Forty-eight hours after the wedding, Manhattan was still reeling from the aftershocks. Ethan Drake had barricaded himself inside his penthouse, refusing all media inquiries while his legal team desperately scrambled to challenge the council’s ethics clause invocation.
It was utterly futile.
Julian and I arrived at the Drake Capital headquarters on Wall Street for an emergency shareholder assembly. Dressed in a tailored emerald green suit with a rare emerald brooch gifted to me by Lady Cordelia Vance, I walked beside my husband into the high-floor executive boardroom.
The directors fell into dead silence as Julian and I took our seats at the head of the mahogany conference table. Sitting at the far corner, looking haggard, disheveled, and bags under his bloodshot eyes, was Ethan Drake. Brooke Sinclair was conspicuously absent—sources had already confirmed she had fled to Miami the previous afternoon after realizing Ethan’s accounts were frozen.
“You have no right to chair this meeting, Julian,” Ethan rasped, his voice trembling with bitter hatred. “I am the principal heir of the Drake legacy!”
“You were the heir, Ethan,” I spoke up, opening a sleek black leather binder before me. “Until you attempted to use the Montgomery Arts Foundation to unlawfully underwrite unauthorized subprime debt instruments without trustee consent.”
I slid the audit documents across the table to the board members. “This is the forensic report completed this morning by federal investigators. Ethan used company funds to purchase luxury real estate under Brooke Sinclair’s name, intending to offload the liabilities onto my foundation following our theoretical divorce.”
Gasps echoed around the table. The senior board members turned their glares toward Ethan with pure venom.
“You idiot,” one senior investor barked. “You gambled our firm’s sovereign credit rating for a side mistress and your own petty arrogance?”
Julian leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, exuding cold, lethal authority. “As of 9:00 AM this morning, Vance Global exercised its option to acquire the remaining outstanding voting shares surrendered under Section 14. Combined with Ava’s trust voting block, we hold sixty-four percent of Drake Capital.”
Julian tapped a finger against the table. “By unanimous board vote, Ethan Drake is stripped of all executive titles, his corporate shares are sequestered for forensic restitution, and formal criminal referrals have been submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Southern District of New York.”
Ethan shot to his feet, knocking his chair backward. “Ava, please! You can’t do this to me! Think about the four years we spent together! I was wrong, I was stupid, but I loved you! You can’t put me in prison!”
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I looked up at him, feeling absolutely nothing—no anger, no grief, only pure liberation. “Ava was temporary, Ethan. Remember your own words? You created this bed. Now you will sleep in it alone.”
Two federal marshals stepped into the boardroom, presenting an official arrest warrant for corporate wire fraud and grand larceny. As the steel handcuffs clicked around Ethan’s wrists, he was led out through the glass doors, sobbing pathetically in front of the very employees he had looked down upon for years.
