He Looked Down on His Poor Ex—Never Knowing She Was Married to the Most Feared Mafia Boss

By three o'clock that afternoon, the sixty-fourth floor of the Aldridge & Vance building was in a state of quiet, hysterical chaos.

Executive assistants were sprinting down the carpeted hallways carrying armfuls of blue manila folders. The firm’s chief financial officer had been seen locking himself in his office forty minutes earlier, and the coffee machine in the main partner lounge sat cold and abandoned.

Trevor burst through the double glass doors of the executive suite, dripping wet, his tie crooked, his face flushed red.

“Trevor!” his secretary, Sandra, gasped, jumping up from her desk. “Where have you been? Mr. Aldridge has been looking for you for the last hour!”

“Is he in his office?” Trevor asked, wiping rain off his jaw. “I need to see him right now, Sandra. It’s an emergency. Some thug harassed me at the Galleria and—”

“Trevor, shut up,” Sandra whispered, her voice tight with panic. She looked around nervously before leaning over her desk. “The board of directors is in the main conference room. All of them. Even the retired partners who live in Florida flew in on private jets twenty minutes ago.”

Trevor blinked. “What? Why?”

Before Sandra could answer, the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall opened.

Marcus Aldridge—a fifty-five-year-old titan of the Chicago legal world with silver hair and a five-thousand-dollar suit—stepped out. His face was gray, his tie slightly loosened, his eyes hollowed out by pure, unadulterated stress.

He caught sight of Trevor standing near the reception desk.

“Sterling,” Aldridge called out. His voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a terrifying, hollow weight. “Get in here.”

Trevor swallowed hard, adjusting his wet jacket. He tried to pull his shoulders back, forcing himself to assume his usual confident posture as he walked down the hallway.

“Mr. Aldridge, sir,” Trevor began as he reached the door. “I’m glad I found you. There’s a situation involving a client—or rather, a man claiming to represent Vance Holdings—”

“In,” Aldridge commanded, pointing a trembling finger into the room.

Trevor walked inside.

The main conference room offered a two-hundred-degree view of Lake Michigan, but nobody was looking at the view. Around the massive mahogany table sat twelve senior partners, their faces lined with grim resignation.

At the head of the table sat a woman Trevor didn't recognize—a sleek, sharp-featured corporate auditor holding an iPad.

Beside her sat Arthur.

The scar-faced bodyguard sat quietly in a leather armchair, an untouched glass of sparkling water resting on the table in front of him. He didn't look at Trevor when he walked in; he was busy cleaning his thumbnail with a silver pocket knife.

“Sit down, Trevor,” Aldridge said, taking his place at the opposite end of the table.

Trevor sat down in an empty chair, his wet trousers squeaking against the leather. “Mr. Aldridge, what is the meaning of this? Who is this man?” He pointed a shaking finger at Arthur. “He was with the thug at the mall!”

SLAM!

Aldridge brought his open palm down on the mahogany table with a force that made the crystal water glasses ring.

“You idiot,” Aldridge whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so deep his lips were turning white. “You absolute, incompetent, arrogant worm.”

Trevor froze. “Sir?”

“That ‘thug’ at the mall,” Aldridge spat, leaning across the table, “owns forty-two percent of this firm’s voting shares. He holds the mortgages on our three satellite offices in New York, London, and Tokyo. His family’s capital fund pays for our partner dividends!”

Trevor felt the room tilt sideways. “W-what?”

The female auditor tapped her iPad, clearing her throat. “At two-fifteen p.m. today, Vance Holdings initiated a emergency audit of Trevor Sterling’s accounts. In less than forty-five minutes, we discovered three distinct violations of federal banking regulations.”

She looked up at Trevor, her eyes cold and professional.

“You billed a total of forty-two thousand dollars in personal travel expenses to the Vane Logistics retainer account over the last six months. You altered two billing invoices for the Miller arbitration. And you took a six-hundred-dollar unauthorized cash advance from the firm's petty cash drawer three years ago when you were hired as a junior associate.”

Trevor’s throat went bone dry. The six hundred dollars. The exact amount he had stolen from Sadi’s jar.

“I—I can explain that!” Trevor stammered, his hands sweating so profusely he couldn't keep them flat on the table. “That was an administrative error! A clerical mistake! I’ll pay it back right now! I have the money!”

“You don't have anything, Sterling,” Aldridge said coldly. “Because as of three minutes ago, the board has unanimously voted to terminate your employment with cause. Your license to practice law in the state of Illinois has been suspended pending a formal ethics investigation by the bar association.”

“No,” Trevor breathed, his vision going black around the edges. “No, you can't do this! I brought in the Vane account!”

“Vane Logistics canceled their contract with us ten minutes ago,” Aldridge snapped. “Richard Vane called me personally, screaming that his daughter broke her engagement with you because you brought ruin upon his family!”

Aldridge stood up, buttoning his jacket. He looked at Trevor with a disgust so potent it made Trevor feel small—smaller than he had ever felt in his entire life.

“Two security guards are waiting outside your office,” Aldridge said flatly. “You have ten minutes to clear your desk into a cardboard box. If you are still in this building at three-thirty, I will have you arrested for criminal trespass.”

Trevor looked around the table. He looked at the senior partners he had golfed with, the men who had clapped him on the back last month when he made partner, the men whose shoes he had licked for three long years.

Not a single one of them looked at him. Every head was turned toward the window, looking out at the rain.

Arthur closed his pocket knife with a soft click.