Chapter 8 - Begging in the Cold Rain
By six o’clock that evening, the eviction notices were served.
Andrew Weston sat on the rain-slicked curb outside the 57th Street penthouse building, the exact spot where Emma had climbed into a car nearly a year prior. Two private security guards stood outside the revolving glass doors, holding court orders barring him from entering. His designer luggage was piled messily on the sidewalk beside him, rapidly soaking through in the freezing April rain.
His phone was dead. His bank accounts were frozen. The board of directors had formally stripped him of his title, and his personal guarantees on the defaulted construction loans meant bankruptcy trustees would seize his cars, his watches, and his clothes by tomorrow morning.
Down the block, a yellow cab pulled up to the curb. Lila Summers stepped out, accompanied by an older, balding man in a fur-trimmed coat. Andrew looked up, a pathetic spark of hope lighting his desperate eyes.
""Lila!"" Andrew scrambled to his feet, running over to her. ""Lila, baby, listen to me. I have some offshore accounts in the Caymans that they haven't found yet. We can take a flight tonight, we can—""
Lila took one look at his soaked, disheveled suit and pulled her coat tighter around herself in disgust. ""Get away from me, Andrew. Don't touch me.""
""Lila, it’s Drew! The man you love!"" he cried out, his voice breaking into a ragged sob.
""The man I loved had a private jet and a corner office on Park Avenue,"" Lila sneered, stepping behind her older companion. ""You're a bankrupt nobody with a criminal fraud investigation hanging over your head. Lose my number, Andrew. Or I'll call the police and file a restraining order.""
The older man shoved Andrew roughly backward onto the pavement. The cab doors slammed shut, and the car sped away, splashing dirty gutter water across Andrew’s face and chest.
Andrew lay there on the cold concrete, coughing and sobbing uncontrollably. The pedestrians walking past stepped over his legs, ignoring his cries just as the elite had ignored Emma’s silent humiliation in the ballroom. He had built his entire life on cruelty, arrogance, and the illusion of power. Now, stripped of his golden armor, he was nothing more than garbage on a Manhattan sidewalk.
Across the street, parked silently in the shadows, was a black armored SUV. Emma sat in the back seat, holding baby Arthur against her shoulder. The baby gurgled happily, completely oblivious to the ruined man crying in the gutter fifty yards away.
""Do you want me to have security move him along, Ms. Vance?"" the driver asked softly.
Emma looked through the tinted window for three quiet seconds. She felt no hatred. Hatred required an emotional investment, and Andrew Weston no longer owned even a penny of her thoughts.
""No,"" Emma said quietly, adjusting her son’s warm cashmere cap. ""Leave him there. Let him see what it feels like when nobody looks.""
May you like
""Where to, ma’am?""
Emma smiled down at her son, whose bright eyes reflected the warm glow of the interior lights. ""Take us to the airport. We are going home to Ireland.""
