Chapter 4 - The Unmasking at Midnight
While Miles Corrigan was watching his empire slip through his fingers on the fifty-fourth floor, Bianca Vale was hiding behind the drawn velvet drapes of her penthouse on Park Avenue.
Her telephone had not stopped ringing since four in the morning. Her agency—she was ostensibly a luxury lifestyle consultant with three brand sponsorships—had terminated her agreements via automated email at 3:15 a.m. The luxury design house that had custom-fitted her silver gala gown had released a scathing statement on their official channels: Maison Laurent does not condone violence or classist degradation and has revoked all ambassador titles previously extended to Miss Vale.
"It's a conspiracy!" Bianca screamed into her telephone, pacing across her hand-woven Persian rug. "Miles, do you hear me? You have to sue that girl! She baited me! The whole thing was a setup to ruin your merger!"
The voice on the other end was not Miles. It was cold, deep, and measured.
"Miss Vale," Gabriel Vance said through the receiver.
Bianca stopped mid-stride, her breath catching in her throat like a fishbone. "Who is this? Where is Miles?"
"Miles is currently signing the transfer of his residential equity to cover his margin calls," Gabriel said evenly. "You're speaking on a line that was billed to Corrigan Logistics’ corporate account. As of ten minutes ago, that account has been frozen."
Bianca swallowed hard, trying to summon the diamond-edged arrogance that had carried her through Manhattan’s social circuits for five years. "You think you can bully me? My father is on the board of the Metropolitan Arts Foundation! We have lawyers who specialize in harassment—"
"Your father’s foundation received seventy percent of its operational endowment from the Vance Family Fund," Gabriel said. The sound of papers turning came softly through the line. "Or rather, it did until seven o'clock this morning. When the trustees reviewed the footage of your performance at the Beacon Grand, they unanimously agreed that continuing to associate with your family would be inconsistent with their mission."
"You... you pulled the endowment?" Bianca’s voice cracked, rising an octave into sheer panic. "My father will kill me! That's forty million dollars!"
"Forty-two million, five hundred thousand," Gabriel corrected. "And that was just the opening gesture. You tore my wife’s clothes because you wanted to show six hundred people her 'place.' Do you know where Iris’s place is, Miss Vale?"
Bianca gripped the phone with both hands, tears of rage and terror finally spilling over her mascara. "She was carrying water trays! She was a nobody!"
"She was carrying trays because the young woman who was supposed to work that shift had a five-year-old child in the intensive care unit at New York Presbyterian," Gabriel said, each word landing like a lead weight. "Iris took her apron so the mother wouldn't lose her daily wage. That 'nobody' built the wing of the hospital where that child is currently recovering. She built the foundation that paid for your father’s scholarship program twenty years ago. And you ripped her blouse because three drops of water touched a five-thousand-dollar piece of calfskin."
"I'll apologize!" Bianca sobbed, collapsing onto her ivory sofa. "I'll go on television! I'll wear whatever she wants, I'll pay for the dry cleaning, I'll pay for a thousand dresses!"
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"You won't go near her," Gabriel said, his tone chillingly absolute. "Because if your shadow crosses Iris’s path again, I won't just pull endowments. I will buy the note on this building, Miss Vale, and turn your penthouse into a daycare center for the hotel's night shift. Have a good afternoon."
The line went dead, leaving Bianca staring at the silent receiver while sirens from the avenue below wailed through the gray rain.
