Chapter 6 - Unmasking The Predator
Nathan thrashed against the iron grip of the officers, screaming profanities that shocked even the hardened cathedral staff.
“Get your hands off me!” he shrieked, his polished aristocratic accent dissolving into gutter vulgarity. “Do you know who my family is? My grandfather built half this city! You are nobody, Evelyn! You are a piece of trash from Queens! I plucked you out of the gutter, and you dare set me up? You set me up!”
“You set yourself up, Nathan,” I replied, standing tall before him, watching him struggle like a wild dog on a short chain. “The only thing I did was turn the lights on in the room where you were stealing in the dark.”
Officer Ramirez, a towering officer with broad shoulders, hauled Nathan upright by his collar. Nathan’s expensive tuxedo jacket was torn at the shoulder seam, his immaculate tie pulled askew, and his manicured hair fell across his forehead in sweaty, disheveled clumps.
As they dragged him down the altar steps, his eyes locked onto mine with murderous intensity. “I will make bail before midnight!” he spat. “Every lawyer in Manhattan will be at the precinct before the ink dries on your reports! I’ll crush you, Evelyn! I’ll hire people who will make you disappear!”
“He won't be making bail, Ms. Sterling,” Detective Bennett said loudly, her eyes locked on the press reporters who were live-streaming every second directly to social media and news networks. “Because while we were executing this warrant, federal agents from the SEC and the Department of Justice were simultaneously raiding the Whitmore Capital headquarters on Wall Street. Judge Vance has already declared Nathaniel Whitmore Jr. a catastrophic flight risk with assets exceeding twenty million dollars stashed in non-extradition jurisdictions. He will be remanded without bail to Rikers Island pending federal indictment.”
A deafening uproar filled the cathedral. Society matrons were crying, wealthy executives were screaming into their cell phones ordering their brokers to dump Whitmore stock immediately, and Senator Richard Whitmore looked as if he had suffered a massive stroke where he stood.
Nathan stared at Bennett, his pupils dilated to pinpricks. The reality of his situation finally breached his thick skull. No bail. Federal indictments. Asset freezes. Prison. Real, inescapable prison.
His legs gave out beneath him. The two officers had to physically support his dead weight as they dragged him down the red-carpeted center aisle—the exact aisle he had planned to walk as a victorious conqueror.
As he passed the pew where my parents sat, my father stood up.
Thomas Sterling was a humble man who had spent his life pouring concrete and framing houses with his bare hands. He looked down at the sniveling coward being dragged past his boots.
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“You laid your hands on my little girl,” my father said, his voice deep, gravelly, and steady. “You thought my family was weak because we work for a living. But you forgot one thing, Nathan: real builders build things to stand against the storm. Thieves like you only know how to tear things down. Enjoy your cage.”
Nathan couldn't even look him in the eye. He hung his head, sobbing into his chest as the police dragged him through the main cathedral doors and out into the waiting gauntlet of twenty news vans and dozens of flashing sirens.
