Chapter 64 Called A Predator
The legal summons was delivered by a man in a plain suit who didn't even look Sarah in the eye, he just handed her the thick stack of papers and walked away before she could ask him a single question, and Sarah stood in her kitchen at six in the morning with the refrigerator humming in the background while she read the name of the plaintiff.
It wasn't Richard Harrington and it wasn't Helena, it was a name she had only heard in whispers during her time at the Vane estate, a woman named Catherine Vane who was the sister of Alex’s mother, and the document claimed that Sarah was a predator who had systematically targeted a young heir to siphon off a centuries-old inheritance.
Sarah sat at her table and felt a cold weight settle in her chest, because this wasn't about corporate shares or construction sites, this was a family feud that had been burning since before Alex was born, and she was just the fuel they were using to start the fire.
She waited until seven to call Alex, but his phone went straight to a busy signal, so she drove to his office and pushed past the security guards who were starting to look at her with a mix of pity and suspicion.
Alex was sitting behind his desk with three lawyers she had never seen before, and he looked like he hadn't slept in forty-eight hours, his eyes were bloodshot and his hands were gripping the edge of a mahogany table so hard his knuckles were white. He looked up when she walked in, and for a split second, she saw the boy who used to hide in the library with Mark, but then the mask of the Executive Vice President slammed back into place, and he gestured for the lawyers to leave the room.
"You got the papers, I assume, I’ve been on the phone with the Vane estate trustees since midnight trying to get them to see reason, but Catherine is convinced that you are the reason I tried to launch that hostile takeover," Alex said, and his voice sounded like it was being pulled through gravel, dry and cracking from too much talking and not enough air.
"She called me a predator, Alex, she says I’m exploiting a vulnerable man, and she’s suing me for every penny I’ve ever earned because she thinks I’m a thief," Sarah said, and she set the papers on his desk, her hand trembling just enough for him to notice. "I told you that your world was going to swallow me whole, and now I have your father trying to buy my silence and your mother’s family trying to put me in prison, so tell me how this ends."
"It ends with me winning, Sarah, I am moving the Vane assets into a separate holding company where they can't touch them, and I’m filing a counter-suit for harassment against my aunt," Alex told her, and he stood up and walked toward her, but he looked so frail and so tired that she was afraid he was going to collapse before he reached her.
"You are fighting your own family for me, Alex, and I can see what it is doing to you, you aren't eating and you look like you’re about to break into a thousand pieces," Sarah said, reaching out to touch his face, but he just leaned into her hand and closed his eyes for a moment, the tension in his jaw never fully disappearing.
"They aren't my family, they are just people who want the money my maternal grandfather left behind, and they hate my father so much that they are willing to destroy anything he touches, including us," he whispered, and then he pulled away and walked back to the window, his back turning into a wall again. "I need you to stay quiet for a few days, Sarah, don't talk to the press and don't answer any calls from numbers you don't know, because my aunt is looking for any reason to prove that you are controlling my decisions."
"I am not a burden you have to carry, Alex, I am a grown woman with a business to run, and I don't like the way you are talking to me like I’m a child who needs to be hidden in a closet," Sarah said, her voice sharpening as she watched him crumble under the pressure of two different wars.
"You are a burden to them, not to me, but right now I have to keep the Harringtons from firing me and the Vanes from suing you, so please, just for once, do what I ask without an argument," Alex snapped, and he turned around with a look of such deep, jagged stress that Sarah stopped talking.
She spent the afternoon in her own office, trying to work on the Veridian designs, but her mind was a mess of legal threats and the memory of Alex’s haunted face. She felt like a weight around his neck, a target that everyone was aiming at just to get to him, and she started to wonder if Richard was right, if her presence in his life was the very thing that was making him lose his mind.
Stacy came in around four with a coffee and sat down without being asked, her face full of a quiet concern that Sarah couldn't handle right then.
"The lawyers called the office, Sarah, they want a list of every client we’ve had in the last five years and a record of every wire transfer you’ve received from Alex," Stacy said, her voice low and steady. "They are trying to build a timeline to show that you were in financial trouble before you met him, they want to prove you were looking for a bailout."
"I was in trouble because Richard Harrington put me there, but the Vanes don't care about the truth, they just want to win a fight that started twenty years ago," Sarah said, and she looked at her friend and saw the exhaustion there too. "I’m dragging everyone down with me, Stacy, and I don't know how to stop it without walking away from everything."
"You aren't dragging us down, but Alex is losing his grip, I saw him on the news an hour ago leaving a board meeting and he looked like a ghost of the man he was last month," Stacy told her, and Sarah felt a fresh wave of guilt hit her.
Sarah drove back to the Harrington building late that night, hoping to find Alex alone so they could talk like real people, but when she arrived, the lobby was empty and the lights on the top floor were mostly dimmed. She decided to take the side entrance to avoid the night security, and as she walked toward the elevators, she saw a black car parked in the shadows of the loading dock, a car she recognized because it was the same one Joseph used to drive when he was trying to look successful.
She stayed in the shadows and watched as the door to the service elevator opened, and two men in expensive suits stepped out, followed by a man who was laughing and shaking their hands with a familiar, greasy charm.
It was Joseph, and he looked more polished and more confident than he had the day Alex fired him, and he was holding a leather folder that had the Vane and Associates logo printed on the front in silver ink. Sarah felt the blood turn to ice in her veins as she watched her ex-husband lean in to whisper something to the lead Vane lawyer, his face lighting up with a mean, hungry smile that told her exactly what he was doing there.
Joseph patted the folder and spoke loud enough for the sound to carry across the quiet garage, his voice full of a smug victory that made Sarah’s heart stop.
"I have the bank statements from her first marriage and the emails she sent me when she was looking for the expansion loan, so you’ll have everything you need to show the court exactly what kind of woman she is," Joseph said, and he shook the lawyer's hand one last time before stepping into his car.