Chapter 16 - The Unexpected Subpoena
The morning sun filtered softly through the tall French windows of my apartment overlooking the Seine, painting the parquet floors in pale honey tones. A delicate porcelain cup of Earl Grey rested beside my tablet, where quarterly performance metrics for Sterling-Ellis Capital glowed in reassuring green numbers. We had outperformed every conservative projection by thirty percent. Our European clean-energy fund was thriving, Henri was orchestrating our portfolio with effortless grace, and Chicago felt like a faded nightmare from a previous life.
Then my private phone rang.
It was not Henri, nor was it my asset manager in Zurich. The caller ID displayed Marcus Vance’s direct line from his downtown Chicago office.
"Good morning, Marcus," I said, leaning against the marble kitchen counter. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I assumed our final tax repatriations were signed last week."
Marcus did not open with his usual dry humor. "Evelyn, take a seat. We have an operational complication."
My hand tightened slightly around the receiver. "What kind of complication?"
"Twenty minutes ago, a courier served my Chicago office with an emergency complaint filed in the Cook County Chancery Division," Marcus explained, his paper-shuffling audible across the ocean. "Daniel has found someone to back him. A boutique litigation fund called Apex Crest Partners has underwritten a predatory claim to contest the dissolution of the marital trust. They are alleging fraudulent conveyance of the Lake Forest sale proceeds, claiming you coerced the board into freezing his assets under false pretenses."
A cold laugh escaped my lips. "False pretenses? I handed the board eighty pages of wire receipts, unauthorized offshore transfers, and photos of him toasting his communications director in a condominium bought with corporate money."
"I know that, and the law knows that," Marcus replied, his voice heavy with practical fatigue. "Under normal circumstances, any judge would toss this within ten minutes. But Apex Crest didn't just file standard motions. They partnered with Julian Thorne."
The name hit the quiet room like a winter draft. Julian Thorne was a notorious legal mercenary in Manhattan—a man who specialized in high-stakes corporate blackmail disguised as litigation. He didn't care about winning at trial; he weaponized discovery, leaked manufactured scandals to the financial tabloids, and pressured wealthy defendants into eight-figure settlements to make the embarrassment stop.
"Thorne is trying to freeze your liquidity before your secondary institutional round closes next month," Marcus warned. "If he slaps a lis pendens or a temporary restraining order on the European cross-border accounts, your French and German institutional investors might get cold feet. Daniel is desperate, Evelyn. He has nothing left to lose, which makes him reckless. Thorne is demanding a full forensic deposition of your European fund, and he’s demanded it in person."
"In Chicago?" I asked quietly.
"He filed a motion to compel your deposition in Cook County. If you ignore it, he will seek an order of default contempt and attempt to freeze your stateside holding accounts."
I walked over to the tall balcony doors, looking down at the tranquil waters of the Seine. For nearly a year, I had relished my peaceful exile. I had rebuilt my fortune, reclaimed my dignity, and proved to the world that Daniel was merely a passenger on a train I had engineered. Now, he was trying to grab my ankle from the gutter, hoping to drag me back into the muck of his ruined life.
"Marcus," I said, my voice dropping into that familiar, diamond-hard cadence. "When is the hearing on the motion to compel?"
"Next Thursday at nine in the morning, Judge Harrison’s courtroom."
"Do not file for an extension," I instructed calmly. "And do not offer them a settlement dime. Not one single dollar."
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"What are you thinking, Evelyn?"
"Julian Thorne thinks I am an evasive heiress hiding behind Parisian baguettes and high-priced foreign directors," I said, a slow, determined smile forming on my lips. "He wants a deposition? He wants a courtroom showdown? Book me on the private charter out of Le Bourget for Tuesday evening. If Daniel wants to reopen the books on our marriage, I will show him every single receipt he forgot existed."
