Chapter 60 Refuge
The silence in the grand library of the Vane estate was heavy, and Sarah stood in the doorway watching Alex as he sat on the floor, surrounded by thousands of shredded paper strips that looked like white leaves scattered across the dark wood. He didn't look up when the glass door creaked, he just kept staring at a glass of whiskey in his hand, his eyes red and his face covered in a rough beard that made him look like a man who had been living in a cave instead of a mansion.
"I called you fifty times, Alex, I thought you were dead or worse," Sarah said, her voice echoing off the high ceilings as she walked toward him, stepping over the mess of destroyed legal documents.
"I’m not dead, Sarah, but I think the man you loved might be, because I sat in that office and I felt the blood in my veins turning into ice, just like my father’s," Alex said, his voice sounding like gravel, and he finally looked up at her with a hollow expression.
"You are not your father, and you are not a monster, you are just a man who tried to carry too much weight," she told him, kneeling in the pile of paper beside him and reaching for his hand.
"I almost hit the table while you were standing there, I saw the fear in your eyes when I lunged at Joseph, and I realized that I was starting to enjoy the terror I was causing," Alex whispered, pulling his hand away as if he didn't trust himself to touch her.
"Helena came here this morning, she sat in that chair and she laughed at me, she told me that the Veridian project is hers now and that your firm is officially blacklisted from the Harrington Group, and do you know what I did?"
"What did you do, Alex?" Sarah asked, her heart breaking at the sight of him.
"I didn't fight her, I just sat here and watched her take it, I watched her steal your livelihood and I felt nothing but relief because it meant I didn't have to be a Harrington anymore," he said, and he took a long swallow of the whiskey, his hand shaking so much the glass clinked against his teeth.
"I am done, Sarah, I am letting it all go, the money, the name, the legacy, I’m signing the papers to hand the Vane trust back to the estate and I am walking away with nothing."
"You can't just give up everything, you've worked to get to this position," she argued, but Alex shook his head and gestured at the shredded paper.
"This is the takeover, this is the 'Full Vane' strike I promised you, it’s all trash now, and I realize that the only way to save my soul is to become a nobody again, so I want you to come with me, we can take my truck and drive until the city lights disappear and we can start over in a place where no one has a last name that matters."
"You mean just leave? Right now?" Sarah asked, her mind spinning with the logic of it.
"Tonight, I have enough cash in a private account to buy us a small house and a quiet life, and I don't want the suits or the boardrooms or the cameras ever again," Alex said, and he stood up, pulling her up with him, his grip on her arms sudden and intense.
"Tell me you’ll go, tell me you don't need the Harrington shadow to love me."
"I never needed the shadow, I only ever needed you," she said, and for a second, a flicker of the old Alex returned to his eyes.
"Then let’s go, before the lawyers show up to tell me what else I’ve lost," Alex said, and he started to pull her toward the hallway, but the sound of heavy footsteps on the marble floor of the foyer stopped them both cold.
The double doors of the library swung open, and Richard Harrington walked in, followed by three men in dark suits who stood like statues behind him. Richard looked at the mess on the floor and then at his son, and a small, cruel smile touched his lips.
"You always did have a flair for the dramatic, Alex, but shredding your mother’s inheritance doesn't make you a hero, it just makes you a fool," Richard said, his voice booming through the room.
"Get out of here, Dad, I told you I’m resigning, I’m done with your company and I’m done with your games," Alex yelled, his body tensing as he pushed Sarah behind him.
"You can't resign from a bloodline, and you certainly can't resign from the debt you owe this family," Richard told him, and he held up a folder of his own. "I didn't come here to argue, I came here to tell you that the Vane estate has been placed under a legal hold, and you aren't going anywhere until the audit of your 'private accounts' is complete."
"You can't freeze my personal money, that’s not Harrington property," Alex snapped.
"It is when the money was moved through Harrington servers to buy a secondary lien on a certain property," Richard said, looking directly at Sarah. "You see, Alex, you tried to play the game of a king, but you forgot that a king is never allowed to just walk away from his throne."
"I’m leaving, and you can't stop me," Alex growled, taking a step toward his father.
"I can't, but the police can, unless you agree to the terms I’ve laid out for your rehabilitation period," Richard said, and he stepped aside to let one of the men in suits walk forward with a set of handcuffs.