Chapter 97 Adeline
Adeline's POV
"I don't know what you think you have in there," Eric sneered, trying desperately to piece his shattered pride back together. "But Zara owes me. She knows what happens if she doesn't pay."
"Zara doesn't owe you a dime." I replied as I flipped open the heavy cover of the folder. I took my time, letting the silence in the booth stretch until Eric shifted uncomfortably. I pulled out a stack of bank statements and spread them out across the table.
"Fifty thousand dollars," I stated clearly, tapping a manicured nail against a highlighted line. "Wired two weeks ago from a Cayman Islands shell company of which you are the primary beneficiary to the personal checking account of a mid-level accountant named Marcus Thorne."
Eric’s face drained of color. "That... that proves nothing. I make investments all the time."
"You do," I agreed cheerfully, pulling out the next sheet of paper. "But you are also incredibly sloppy, Eric. You used the IP address of your Manhattan penthouse to send a series of emails from a burner account."
I slid the printed email chain across the table directly into his line of sight. "Let me read my favorite excerpt," I said. "Hand them over and I can finally squeeze the Whitmore bitch for everything her father left her."
Eric stared at the email, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. "How... how did you get this? Those were encrypted."
"Marcus was feeling incredibly cooperative last night," I lied smoothly, omitting the part where four armed enforcers had dragged him out of bed. "We have the emails. We have the bank records, and more importantly, we have the original unredacted Whitmore ledgers on a hard drive sitting safely in a vault you will never, ever access."
I reached into my briefcase and pulled out the Non-Disclosure Agreement and placed it in the center of the table, and for good measure, I slid a gold fountain pen right to him because he was definitely signing.
"This is how your night ends, Mr. Weeks," I told him, tapping the signature line. "You sign this contract. You agree to never speak, write, or contact Zara Whitmore or her family ever again. If you breach this contract, you legally forfeit the entirety of your trust fund, your real estate, and your equity firm to a holding company of my choosing, plus your confession goes straight to the SEC."
Eric stared at the NDA in complete and genuine terror. He realized that he had been completely outplayed, but Eric was a man who had spent his entire life being shielded by his father's money. He had never faced real consequences, and his bruised ego simply couldn't accept that a woman was cornering him, so the terror on his face quickly changed into an ugly sneer directed at me.
"No," Eric spat, pushing the contract back toward me.
I frowned in genuine surprise at his stupidity. "Excuse me?"
"You think you can scare me with a piece of paper?" Eric hissed and looked at Percy, who hadn't moved a muscle. "I don't care how much money you have, Akilov. You can't touch me. My family plays golf with federal judges. The police commissioner eats dinner at my house. If you try to take my assets, I will tie this up in litigation for the next decade." Eric slammed his hands on the table and stood up. "I'm leaving, and you heard it here first; I am leaking the Whitmore files to the Times the second I get into my car."
He didn't make it to his feet, not fully, because one minute he was getting his confidence back and the next minute, Percy had grabbed him by the lapels of his expensive Tom Ford jacket and violently yanked him back down into the leather seat, making the glasses on the table rattle violently.
Eric let out a choked gasp as Percy leaned directly into his space. The Percy Eric got was not the corporate lawyer; it was the mafia mob boss of New York, the one he had been hearing rumors about.
"You deeply misunderstand the situation, Eric." Percy whispered in a voice that terrified even me.
Percy reached out, his large hand wrapping around the back of Eric's neck, gripping him hard enough that Eric winced in pain. "My fiancé just offered you a lifeline." Percy murmured with dark eyes that were completely devoid of mercy. "She is a civilized woman who prefers to ruin men with ink and paper. I am not."
Eric was trembling now. "Akilov, please..."
"Shut up." Percy commanded softly, his grip tightening. "If you walk out of this booth without signing that paper, the legal negotiation ends and my negotiation begins. I won't take your trust fund, Eric. I will have my men throw you in the trunk of a car and drive you to a warehouse in Brooklyn where they will take your fingers. Then they will take your teeth, and just when you think you've been through enough, they will start all over again until you are finally begging for death, except my men won't stop until they're satisfied. Only then will they drop you in the East River."
A pathetic, whimpering sound escaped Eric’s throat at his threat. "She is offering you mercy, and I'm telling you to take it because if you force me to handle this my way, I promise you will not survive the night."
Percy slowly released Eric’s neck and gave him a pat on the cheek.
By the time Percy was back in his rightful seat,
Eric was hyperventilating, and his hands were shaking so violently he could barely pick up the gold pen. He didn't bother reading the terms. He didn't even care about the judges or the police commissioner he had in his pocket anymore. He just wanted to get away from the monster sitting next to him. He furiously scribbled his signature on the bottom line.
He dropped the pen, his chest heaving as he pressed himself as far back into the booth as physically possible. I calmly reached across the table, picked up the signed contract, and inspected the signature to make sure it didn't seem like he did it under duress.
"A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Weeks," I said, smiling at him over my glass before standing. I smoothed down my dress and reached out to adjust Percy's clothing too.
We didn't look back as we walked out of the dimly lit dining room.
When we pushed through the heavy glass doors and stepped out into the New York night air, our car was already waiting for us at the curb.
"You know," Percy murmured, a dark, incredibly proud smile playing on his lips as he looked down at me. "You were magnificent in there. Remind me never to cross you in a courtroom."
"Just remember that, Akilov." I smirked, stepping closer to him, the adrenaline still present in my veins. "I hold all your contracts now."
He let out a low laugh and wrapped his arm around my waist before pulling me in for a deep kiss, right there in front of the whole world.