Chapter 10 - The Monday Morning Strike
-10-
Monday morning arrived with the steady, relentless hum of city traffic outside our downtown high-rise apartment—though I hadn't spent the night here, preferring the quiet sanctuary of the country house until late Sunday evening. By 8:30 AM, I was seated across from Marcus Vance in his sleek, glass-walled conference office overlooking downtown Columbus.
Marcus looked like a man who had just won the lottery. He was flipping through a thick binder filled with printed financial ledgers, encrypted audio transcripts, and the draft legal documents Parker had desperately tried to hide.
"I have to hand it to you, Clarissa," Marcus said, leaning back in his leather executive chair with an admiring smirk. "Most people in your position would have panicked, broken down, or fallen right into the trap. You counter-attacked with the precision of a seasoned corporate executive."
"Survival instinct, Marcus," I replied calmly, taking a sip of black coffee from a porcelain mug. "When someone threatens your child and your home, the gloves come off immediately."
"Well, Julian Vance called my office about twenty minutes ago," Marcus chuckled, tapping a pen against the mahogany table. "He sounded like he was having a nervous breakdown. Apparently, Parker called him at midnight sobbing hysterically, demanding to know how I found out about the offshore wire transfers and the hidden cloud archive."
"And what did you tell Julian?" I asked.
"I told him we are filing a comprehensive, uncontested settlement demand by noon today," Marcus grinned sharply. "Full custody of Dustin to you, absolute relinquishment of all property claims by Parker—including the city townhouse and the country house—and immediate freezing of his personal accounts pending court audit. If he fights us in open court, we enter the audio recording of Alana and Ellie into public record, along with the financial embezzlement ledgers. Parker’s partners at his architectural firm would drop him faster than a hot potato the second those embezzlement files hit the public docket."
It was checkmate in three moves. Parker had no legal defense, no moral high ground, and no financial cushion left to fight back.
"Send the papers over," I instructed smoothly. "Give him until 2:00 PM to sign every single page, or file the full litigation package immediately."
"Consider it done," Marcus nodded.
Two hours later, at precisely 1:45 PM, my phone buzzed while I was sitting in my corporate office downtown.
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It wasn't a phone call. It was a digital notification from Marcus’s server: Document Signed and Verified: Uncontested Settlement Finalized.
Parker had surrendered unconditionally.
