Chapter 7 - Blake's Last Stand
Before Blake’s federal trial began, he was granted home confinement on a three-million-dollar bail bond that Arthur had to mortgage his primary estate to secure.
Stripped of his sports cars, his country club memberships, and his private jet charters, Blake’s mind unravelled. He couldn't accept that the furnace technician he used to mock had dismantled his entire existence.
One rainy Tuesday night, as I was working late in the glass-walled research annex at Meridian’s suburban testing facility, the emergency alarm pinged quietly at my console.
The rear security door of the prototyping bay had been forced open.
I walked down the corridor and stepped into the cavernous bay where the new turbine prototypes were housed. Standing in the center of the concrete floor, soaked in rain and smelling heavily of bourbon, was Blake.
He held an iron pry bar in his right hand.
“Ethan!” Blake barked, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “Look at you! Master of the universe!”
I didn't reach for an alarm. I didn't back away. I stood twenty feet from him under the bright LED floodlights.
“Drop the bar, Blake,” I said quietly.
“You set me up!” Blake yelled, swinging the bar wildly through the air, smashing a glass instrumentation panel on a test rig. “You planned this for five years! You waited like a snake in the grass until I was vulnerable!”
“You set yourself up,” I replied. “I didn't tell you to forge safety certifications on elementary school ventilation systems. I didn't tell you to siphon company funds into offshore shell accounts. You did that because you were weak. Dad spent thirty years teaching you that you were special just for having his last name, and you believed him.”
Blake took three aggressive strides toward me, raising the iron bar above his shoulder. “I was the golden son! Dad loved me! He never looked at you! You were just the hired help who shared our DNA!”
He lunged forward, swinging the bar directly at my head.
Five years of heavy industrial labor, lifting steel compressors and working twelve-hour manual shifts, had made me far stronger than a man who had never lifted anything heavier than a glass of scotch.
I stepped inside his swing, caught his right wrist with one hand, and drove my forearm into his chest.
Blake hit the polished concrete floor with a heavy thud, the iron bar clattering away into the darkness.
He scrambled on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, looking up at me in terror as I stood over him. He braced himself, closing his eyes, waiting for the beating he knew he deserved.
I didn't raise a fist. I didn't strike him.
I reached down, picked up the iron bar, and dropped it into a metal recycling bin with a dull clank.
“Get up,” I said coldly.
Blake opened his eyes, trembling, tears cutting lines through the grime on his face. “Hit me. Go ahead. Do it.”
“You’re not worth the dirt on my work boots, Blake,” I said. “The police are outside. Daniels called them when you tripped the perimeter sensor five minutes ago.”
Through the rain-streaked windows, red and blue emergency lights washed across the ceiling.
May you like
Blake slumped onto his side, curling into a fetal position on the concrete floor, sobbing uncontrollably as the sirens drew near. The golden boy was finally face-to-face with the only thing his father’s money could never buy him: reality.
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