Chapter 8 - The Price of Arrogance
“I made a mistake!” Marcus cried, dropping to his knees on the carpet, tears streaming freely down his unwashed face. “One mistake at my mother’s party! Can’t you forgive me? We took vows before God! In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer!”
“You broke those vows the day you decided my dignity had no value,” I replied, looking directly at him without a trace of anger. “You took my cards when I needed to buy clothing for our son. You let your mother humiliate me in public for three years. You called my handmade dress a rag, threw my gift in the garbage, and ordered me into a freezing storm while I carried your child. You didn't care about vows then, Marcus. You only care now because the woman you threw out happens to be the daughter of the man who holds your leash.”
Marcus’s expression twisted suddenly, the desperation hardening into bitter, ugly fury. “You lied to me! You played me! If I knew you were Arthur Vance’s daughter, do you think I ever would have treated you that way? I would have put you on a pedestal! I would have given you the world!”
“And that,” Eleanor Cross interrupted, sliding a pen and a set of legal documents across the table, “is precisely why you are completely unfit to be her husband or a father to her child.”
“What is this?” Marcus spat, looking at the papers.
“These are your final divorce terms, along with an irrevocable surrender of all parental claims,” Eleanor explained coldly. “In exchange, Vance Capital will purchase your outstanding personal bank debt of fifteen million dollars, preventing your immediate federal bankruptcy and potential prison sentence for bank fraud regarding your falsified shipping manifests.”
Marcus stared at the document, his hands shaking violently. “You want me to sell my own son?”
“You never wanted a son, Marcus,” I said softly. “You wanted an ornament. You wanted an heir to prove your status. If you sign those papers, you walk away with zero debt and a chance to find a normal job and live a quiet life. If you refuse, the forensic audit of your corporate accounts will be handed over to the Department of Justice by five o’clock today. You choose.”
Marcus looked at the documents, then at the security cameras, and finally at me. For three long minutes, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock.
He didn't shed another tear for our child. He didn't ask to feel the baby kick one last time. He grabbed the platinum pen with shaking fingers and signed his name across all seven pages.
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“I’m ruined anyway,” Marcus muttered bitterly, tossing the pen onto the table and standing up. “Everyone knows what happened. I’m a joke in this town.”
“You made yourself a joke,” I replied as the guards escorted him toward the service elevator. “Goodbye, Marcus.”
