Chapter 4 - Playing with Fire
The glass front door of the Damen building felt ice-cold against my shaking palms. I stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by the deafening roar of construction saws and falling plaster, watching seven years of dreams being pulverized into gray dust.
“Excuse me, miss, you can’t be here!” a construction foreman yelled over the noise, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Active demolition zone!”
“This is my building!” I screamed back, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “I have a signed lease! I paid the deposit!”
The foreman pulled a folded clipboard from his truck, squinting at the paperwork. “Lease was voided by the prior owner two days ago under an eminent domain commercial buyout clause. Whole block was acquired by Marino Hospitality. They paid three times market value in cash to clear the lot. Take it up with corporate, lady.”
I didn't take a cab back to Lake Shore Drive. I hailed a taxi straight to the Marino Hospitality corporate headquarters on Wacker Drive—a ninety-story glass monolith that cast a long, cold shadow over the Chicago River.
Security guards in the grand lobby tried to stop me, but I didn't care about their badges or protocols. I flashed the three-carat platinum diamond ring on my left hand and yelled Luke’s name with such blistering fury that the head of security blanched and stepped aside, hastily keying the private executive elevator.
When the doors slid open on the eighty-fifth floor, the hushed, carpeted silence of the boardroom floor was shattered by my boots marching down the marble hallway.
Luke was standing at the head of a massive mahogany conference table surrounded by twenty executives and corporate attorneys. Julian sat near the foot of the table, looking smug, while Victoria watched from a leather armchair.
I shoved the heavy frosted glass doors open with both hands. They banged against the walls with a thunderous echo.
“Sophie?” Luke turned, his eyebrows drawing together in surprise. “What are you doing here? I’m in the middle of a board review.”
I walked straight down the length of the conference table, pulled the crumpled eviction notice from my coat pocket, and slammed it down onto the polished wood right in front of his coffee cup.
“You bought it,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a lethal mixture of heartbreak and rage. “You bought Bennett’s Bakery. To turn it into a parking garage.”
The executives around the table exchanged nervous, bewildered glances.
Luke looked down at the document. His eyes widened slightly, a rare flicker of genuine shock cracking through his composed exterior. “Sophie, wait. I didn't authorize this acquisition.”
“Save your lies for the press, Luke!” I shouted, hot tears finally spilling down my cheeks. “Your name is on the purchase order! Your company seal is on the demolition permit! You gave me that hundred thousand dollars knowing damn well you were going to crush the only thing I cared about beneath your boots!”
“Sophie, listen to me—” Luke took a step toward me, reaching out to touch my arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I snapped, recoiling as if his hand were dipped in poison.
From the corner of the table, Julian chuckled softly, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head. “Come now, sister-in-law. It’s simple urban renewal. That dilapidated hovel was an eyesore. A multi-level valet garage for our new hotel generates four million annually. Surely a woman of your... humble origins understands basic economics?”
I turned slowly to face Julian, then looked back at Luke. Luke’s eyes were fixed on the document, his knuckles turning stark white as he gripped the edge of the mahogany table.
“You knew,” I said to Luke, the realization cutting through me like a serrated knife. “You knew from the very beginning that your family was eyeing that block. That’s why you showed up in my kitchen with that fake laugh and that sick grandmother story. You wanted to keep me docile and bound by a non-disclosure agreement so I wouldn't fight the zoning board!”
“Sophie, that isn't true,” Luke said, his voice raw, desperate, and louder than I had ever heard it. “Look at me. I didn't do this.”
“I’m done looking at you,” I whispered.
I reached for my left hand, grabbed the antique platinum ring, and yanked it off my finger. I threw it across the table. It bounced off his silver pen and landed with a sharp clatter against his crystal water glass.
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“Keep your ring. Keep your penthouse. Keep your blood money,” I choked out, wiping the tears from my face with the sleeve of my sweater. “We are done.”
I turned on my heel and walked out of the boardroom. Behind me, I heard Luke roar Julian’s name with the terrifying ferocity of a wounded beast, followed by the sound of a heavy chair being hurled across the room and shattering against the wall.
