Chapter 3 - The King Without A Kingdom
Victor Grant arrived at the Secaucus facility at 6:48 AM, tires screeching against the damp asphalt as his silver sports car blew past the security gates. He hadn't even bothered to button his silk dress shirt properly, his black tuxedo trousers wrinkled from a sleepless, drunken night, his designer loafers scuffed against the gravel.
He kicked open the heavy metal pedestrian doors of the warehouse with a bang that reverberated against the corrugated steel walls.
""Where is she?"" Victor bellowed, his face mottled red with pure, unadulterated fury. ""Where the hell is Anna?""
The bottling floor was deathly silent. The massive conveyor belts hung motionless like dead snakes. Hundreds of open cardboard crates sat half-filled with glittering bottles, their polished gold caps gleaming uselessly under the harsh white lights. A small crowd of twenty workers stood clustered near the break room, heads bowed, nobody daring to make eye contact with the man whose temper was legendary across the tri-state area.
Dave Kowalski stepped forward, holding a clipboard like a shield. ""She’s not here, Victor. She hasn't been here all night. Margot Keene’s office is cleaned out, too. Every filing cabinet, every thumb drive, every formulation binder. It’s all gone.""
""That’s impossible!"" Victor roared, lunging toward the primary laboratory access door at the rear of the plant. He slammed his personal keycard against the electronic sensor.
Beep-beep-boop. A red light flashed. ACCESS DENIED.
""What is this?"" Victor screamed, kicking the reinforced steel door until the hinges groaned. ""This is my building! My company! My name is on the front of the damn structure!""
He tore his master maintenance key from his pocket, jammed it into the manual override cylinder, and wrenched the handle downward. The door swung open with a slow, heavy groan.
The laboratory was spotless.
The stainless steel counters were scrubbed down to a mirror finish. The temperature-controlled vaults that had once housed millions of dollars worth of rare floral absolutes, aged distillations, and cold-pressed botanical bases stood wide open, their wire shelves completely bare. In the center of the longest examination table sat a single, solitary item: a white porcelain saucer containing a neatly folded white napkin, a small plastic bottle of cheap commercial lavender oil, and a handwritten index card written in precise, elegant cursive.
Victor snatched the card. His hands shook so violently that the paper fluttered like an autumn leaf.
Victor, the note read.
Since you assured three hundred people last night that I only mix bath salts in the basement, I thought it best to leave you with what you understand. The real formula for Forever was never yours to sell to Richard Hall. Have a wonderful launch. — Anna.
Behind him, the clicking of high heels broke the silence. Chloe Pierce stood in the doorway, bundled in a massive cashmere coat that Victor had bought her two weeks ago, her hair pulled back into a hurried, messy bun, her face devoid of the immaculate makeup from the previous night's gala.
""Victor?"" she asked, her voice thin, laced with rising panic. ""My agent is blowing up my phone. The beauty directors from Vogue and Elle are waiting at the flagship store on Madison Avenue for the ten o’clock photo call. They want me holding the first numbered bottle from the production run. What’s going on? Why aren't the trucks loading?""
Victor turned slowly, his eyes wild, the veins in his neck bulging like thick cords. ""Shut up, Chloe.""
""Excuse me?"" Her voice flared with instant offense. ""Do not speak to me like that! I put my face on every billboard in this city! If this launch gets delayed, my reputation—""
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""I said shut up!"" Victor lunged forward, sweeping his arm across the stainless counter, sending beakers, pipettes, and glass stirring rods crashing to the floor in a catastrophic explosion of shattering glass. ""There is no launch! There is no product! My worthless, pathetic little wife stole the concentrate! She took everything!""
Chloe backed away slowly, her eyes darting from Victor's unhinged expression to the empty, echoing vault behind him. She wasn't stupid; she had survived five years in the cutthroat influencer scene by knowing precisely when a ship was starting to take on water. She didn't offer a single word of comfort. She simply turned on her designer heels, pulled out her smartphone, and began typing a rapid message to her publicist.
