Chapter 22 - MUNICIPAL DEBT SERVICE INDEMNIFICATION
IN THE EVENT OF REGULATORY NON-COMPLIANCE OR CONTRACTUAL FORFEITURE BY CLEARPATH HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES, THE MASTER INVESTOR [THE BROOKS LIVING TRUST] HEREBY PLEDGES ALL REAL PROPERTY FIXTURES, COMMERCIAL LEASES, AND OPERATING REVENUES OF THE MARLOWE HOTEL (200 N. LASALLE ST.) AS FIRST-PRIORITY PRIMARY COLLATERAL TO SATISFY OUTSTANDING MUNICIPAL SURETY BONDS IN THE AMOUNT OF $50,000,000.00.
The air in the room vanished.
My late father had built the Marlowe Hotel from an abandoned Art Deco warehouse in the late nineties, spending twenty-five years pouring his life, his sweat, and his honor into every square foot of limestone and marble. When he died four years ago, he had placed the deed into my hands with a single, whispered command: “Never let a stranger put a mortgage on our name, Natalie.”
Ethan hadn't just cheated on me.
He hadn't just brought his pregnant wife to my altar to perform an extortion play.
He had constructed a fifty-million-dollar financial landmine designed to blow my father's hotel out from beneath my feet the moment his fake software collapsed, leaving him sitting in Switzerland with thirty million dollars in offshore liquidity while the city of Chicago foreclosed on my building.
A sharp, violent tremor ran through my hands, but it wasn't fear.
It was an ancient, predatory rage that calcified my spine into an iron girder.
"Where is Olivia right now?" I asked.
Arthur Sterling checked his encrypted phone.
"She is sitting in a private suite on the sixth floor of this building under twenty-four-hour security guard, Natalie," Arthur said. "She refused to leave with Ethan. Her water broke twenty minutes ago. Dr. Morrison and our private medical team are attending to her now."
I stood up from the conference table.
"Cancel the doctors' transport to the public hospital," I commanded.
Arthur frowned, adjusting his spectacles. "Natalie? She slapped you in front of two hundred guests. She was an active co-conspirator in an extortion scheme."
May you like
"She was an instrument, Arthur," I said, walking toward the executive elevator.
"Ethan used her just like he tried to use me. But unlike Ethan, that girl is carrying a child whose only crime was having a monster for a father. Let's go see what she knows."
