Chapter 9 - Grant’s Final Kneel
Evelyn intercepted him in the quiet, limestone colonnade behind the courthouse.
Grant was leaning against a pillar, his tie loosened, his hands trembling violently as he tried to light a bent cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter. He couldn't get the flame to catch.
When he saw her shadow fall across the tiles, he dropped the lighter.
“Evie,” he croaked.
He looked ruined. In forty-eight hours, the boy-wonder of Manhattan finance had lost his fiancée, his mistress, his reputation, and his access to the most lucrative mineral reserve in North America.
“Don’t call me that, Grant,” she said evenly, stopping five paces away.
Grant looked at her, tears suddenly spilling over his bloodshot eyes. He dropped to both knees on the cold stone, crawling forward until his hands touched the hem of her cream coat.
“Evie... please. You don’t know what they did to me. Patricia threatened to ruin my firm! Lydia seduced me, she tricked me! I swear on my mother’s grave, I never wanted you to get hurt! I stayed at the hospital every day for six months!”
Evelyn looked down at him. There was no rage in her heart anymore. No pain. Only a profound, liberating emptiness where seven years of misplaced devotion used to live.
“You stayed at my bedside for six months, Grant, because you wanted to make sure I couldn't remember the headlights in the rearview mirror,” she said calmly.
“No! I loved you! I still love you!” Grant wept, his forehead touching the dusty stone floor. “Take me back. Let me run the marketing for the lithium project. I’ll work for free! Just don't destroy my name on Wall Street. If you release that audio recording, no bank will ever hire me again!”
Evelyn stepped back, pulling her coat out of his grasp.
“I won't have to destroy your name, Grant,” she said. “Julian has already sent the forensic audit to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The wire fraud charges alone carry a mandatory minimum of eight years in federal prison.”
Grant looked up, horror draining the last remnants of color from his face. “You... you reported me to the SEC?”
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“I didn't report you, Grant,” Evelyn said, turning toward the sunlight that was finally breaking through the cloud cover at the end of the colonnade. “The truth did. For seven years, I was blind to who you were, and for thirteen months, I was deaf to your lies. But now, I hear everything. And the sound of you begging is the least impressive thing I’ve ever heard.”
She walked away, her footsteps echoing rhythmic and strong against the stone, leaving Grant sobbing into the dust of the courthouse floor.
