Chapter 5 - The Wall of Silence
By midnight, the storm had turned the streets of Manhattan into slick, black mirrors.
Mark sat in the back of a private car idling outside the high-rise offices of Carter, Vance & Sterling Financial on Park Avenue. His phone, finally plugged into a high-speed charger, was humming with a terrifying, continuous barrage of messages, alerts, and calendar notifications that had accumulated over the ninety-six hours he had been absent from the earth.
He ignored his executive assistants. He ignored the urgent emails from his senior partners regarding the Tokyo logistics merger.
He tapped his brother-in-law’s number.
David Vance.
The call connected on the fourth ring.
"David," Mark gasped into the speaker before the other man could speak. "David, thank God. Listen to me, I know how this looks, but there was a catastrophic breakdown in communication. I need to see Emily. I need to see my daughters. Tell me what hospital they transferred Hope to. I’ll charter a flight right now, I’ll bring the best pediatric specialists in the country—"
"Mark," a voice replied.
It wasn't angry. It was worse. It was the calm, detached voice David Vance used when liquidating an insolvent asset.
"Don't speak," David continued, the sound of rain against heavy glass audible in the background. "Listen very carefully. If you attempt to contact my sister directly, if you send an email, a courier, or an intermediary within five hundred yards of her or my nieces, the temporary restraining order signed by Judge Evelyn Miller at four o'clock this afternoon will become an active bench warrant for your arrest."
"David, she’s my wife!" Mark shouted, his fist slamming against the leather seat of the car. "Those are my children! You cannot legally keep a father from his newborns!"
"You forfeited that title at 2:19 p.m. on Thursday, Mark," David said quietly. "We have the country club security footage. We have the credit card receipts from the Lake George resort where you spent seventy-two hours charging vintage Dom Pérignon to your private account while Baby C was undergoing two cranial ultrasounds to check for hypoxic brain damage."
Mark’s stomach heaved. Hypoxic brain damage. "Is she... is Hope okay? David, please! Tell me if my daughter can breathe!"
"You don't get to ask about her breathing," David replied, his tone chillingly smooth. "You gave up that right when you chose to blow out birthday candles with Madison Vale. Do you know what Emily asked me when she finally woke up from her second surgery, Mark?"
Mark squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking down his cheeks into the stubble of his jaw. "What?"
"She didn't ask where you were," David whispered. "She looked at her empty hand, where her wedding ring used to be, and she said: 'Make sure he never touches them, David. A man who abandons three dying babies for an afternoon of applause will abandon them every time life gets hard.'"
"David, please—"
"The financial discovery demands will be served on your corporate board tomorrow morning at nine," David stated, cutting him off with clinical precision. "Emily doesn't want your alimony, Mark. She doesn't want your country club memberships. She is taking fifty percent of your equity in the investment firm pursuant to the infidelity clause you signed when you begged her to marry you six years ago. And every dime of that money is going into an irrevocable blind trust for Grace, Lily, and Hope."
"I don't care about the money!" Mark wept openly now, his head dropping between his knees in the back of the town car. "Take the firm! Take the house! Take every cent I have in the world! Just let me see them. Let me apologize to her. Let me look at my daughters once."
A pause stretched across the line. Long. Agonizing.
"You'll see them in court, Mark," David said softly. "In six months. When the custody trial begins. Until then, enjoy the quiet. It’s what you turned your phone off for, isn't it?"
The line went dead.
May you like
Mark lowered the phone from his ear.
The silence inside the car was deafening. He looked out the rain-streaked window at the towering, glowing spires of the city he had conquered, and realized that he had never been poorer in his entire life.
