Chapter 5 - The Vance Empire Strikes Back
By 8:00 AM the following morning, David Vance was indeed a free man.
He walked down the concrete steps of the Boston Municipal Court wrapped in a black cashmere coat, his attorney Arthur Sterling walking briskly beside him. A fleet of black town cars waited at the curb with their engines purring.
Arthur Sterling was a fixture of the Boston legal elite—a man of sixty-five with silver hair, teeth like polished porcelain, and a reputation for burying domestic abuse allegations beneath mountains of nondisclosure agreements and private financial settlements.
“The bail was set at twenty-five thousand, which we posted instantly,” Sterling said, keeping his voice low as they navigated past two freelance photographers who had caught wind of the arrest scanner chatter. “The judge issued a standard 209A restraining order. You cannot contact Maya directly, through third parties, or come within five hundred yards of her person, her workplace, or her mother’s residence.”
David climbed into the leather interior of the town car, slamming the door shut with a force that shook the frame. He rubbed his wrists; red abrasions still marked where the steel cuffs had cut into his skin.
“I want her crushed, Arthur,” David growled, his voice thick with unadulterated venom. “I want that miserable old bitch Elena destroyed, and I want Maya crawling back on her hands and knees begging for forgiveness.”
Sterling slid in beside him, opening an expensive leather briefcase. “Emotional outbursts will not help us, David. We need a controlled strategy. The video from the restaurant has not hit major networks yet, but Julian, the manager, is being uncooperative. He refused our offer of fifty thousand dollars to delete their cloud backups.”
“Buy the damn building!” David barked.
“We don't need to buy the building,” Rebecca’s voice rang out from the front passenger seat. She turned around, her face immaculate despite not having slept a wink. Her eyes were hard as flint. “We control the narrative. Maya has a history of anxiety. We have the medical records from her doctor visit two years ago when she was prescribed mild anti-depressants after her father’s death.”
Sterling nodded approvingly. “Precisely. We file an emergency motion in family court for separation. We allege that Maya suffered a severe mental health breakdown at the restaurant, that she became violent and erratic, and that David was merely attempting to physically restrain her to prevent self-harm. We frame Elena as an enabler who is exploiting her daughter’s instability to extort the Vance family trust.”
David leaned back against the headrest, a sinister smirk slowly returning to his lips. “What about the accounts?”
“Locked tight,” Rebecca purred. “I spoke to our private wealth manager at Northern Trust at six this morning. Maya’s personal cards are completely deactivated. The trust assets are shielded under the offshore blind entity we established in Delaware. She doesn't have enough liquid cash to buy a sandwich, let alone retain competent legal counsel. In forty-eight hours, she won't even be able to pay her cellphone bill.”
“And her firm?” David asked. “The architectural project she’s leading?”
“I’ve already scheduled an informal lunch with Marcus Thorne,” Rebecca said, referencing the senior partner of Boston Design Collective, Maya’s employer. “Marcus relies on our family foundation for their civic contracts. By noon today, Maya will be placed on indefinite, unpaid administrative leave due to ‘personal instability and public disruption.’ She will be isolated. Penniless. Discredited.”
David took a deep, luxurious breath, feeling the intoxicating warmth of his family's generational power surge through him. The humiliation of the handcuffs began to fade, replaced by the absolute certainty of his impending victory.
May you like
“She thought calling the police was her salvation,” David murmured, looking out the tinted window as the car glided over the Charles River. “She forgot who owns this city.”
***
