Chapter 7 - A Knock On The Boardroom Door
The heavy double oak doors at the back of the boardroom did not click open politely.
They slammed against the interior walls with a thunderous crack that shook the glass windows overlooking the harbor.
Garrett’s head snapped up, his eyebrows furrowing in sudden fury. ""What is the meaning of this? Security was ordered to lock this entire floor!""
A man walked through the threshold.
He was over six feet tall, dressed in an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit, his posture straight, his strides long, measured, and effortlessly athletic. His hazel eyes swept across the room with the frigid authority of an absolute monarch.
The entire boardroom fell into a dead, terrified silence.
Marcus Sterling stood up so fast his leather chair tumbled backward onto the carpet. ""T-Tobias?""
Penelope’s face turned from pale grief to a sickening, chalky green. She dropped her lace handkerchief, her fingers twitching uncontrollably against her lap. ""No... no, that's impossible. You're... you were...""
""I was what, Penelope?"" Tobias’s voice resonated through the room, clear, resonant, and devoid of tremor. ""Drowned? Chained to eighty pounds of steel at the bottom of the Blackwood River?""
Garrett stood frozen, the gold fountain pen slipping from his fingers and rolling across the polished mahogany, clattering loudly against a crystal water glass. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. His eyes darted toward the window, then back to the tall, imposing figure walking toward the head of the table.
""You're... you're walking,"" Garrett whispered, his voice cracking into a high, pathetic pitch. ""You've been in a wheelchair for fifteen years... you were paralyzed...""
""I was never paralyzed, Garrett,"" Tobias said calmly, stopping at the edge of the table and resting both hands flat against the mahogany surface. ""I was surviving. I was waiting for the men who killed my parents to expose their hands completely. And last night, you laid all your cards on the riverbank.""
""This is an outrage!"" Garrett suddenly shouted, terror morphing into frantic, desperate aggression. He reached for the security buzzer beneath the table. ""Security! Get this man out of here! He's an imposter! Tobias Hart is dead!""
""Security isn't answering, Garrett,"" a second voice called out from the doorway.
Every head in the room whipped around.
I stepped through the shattered entrance, my high heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor. I wore no makeup to hide the faint purple bruises on my neck from the seat belt harness, nor the scratches across my collarbone from the riverbed gravel. My hair was pulled back into a sharp, flawless knot, and my eyes locked onto Garrett Vance with an intensity that made the man visibly recoil.
""Rosalind..."" Garrett choked out, stumbling back until his legs hit the executive chair, his hands flying to his throat as if he were the one drowning. ""Rosalind, my God... you're alive! You survived! It’s a miracle!""
He took a stumbling step toward me, arms outstretched, his face contorting into an obscene caricature of joyous relief. ""Darling! The current took you, I tried to save you, I swear to God I tried—""
Before he could close the distance, I stepped forward and drove my open palm across his face with every ounce of strength in my body.
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The crack echoed like a gunshot through the high ceiling. Garrett stumbled sideways, crashing into the presentation easel and knocking the architectural renderings of the naval patrol boats to the floor.
""Don't you dare touch me,"" I said, my voice cold, steady, and loud enough to fill the entire floor. ""Save your performance for the federal grand jury, Garrett. Because the river didn't take me. You tied me down.""
