Chapter 107 Rock Bottom

Chapter 107 Rock Bottom
“Marcus Reeds is hereby sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment with no option of fine.”

Then the gavel came down with a sharp and final crack.

Marcus was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

A collective murmur swept through the courtroom and reporters scribbled furiously in their notepads while I stayed seated on the prosecution side with my hands folded tightly on my lap.

The sentence should have felt like I got justice but… it felt empty.

Maybe because I was left to pay the debts Marcus had created for me and now I would need to start selling my properties to pay them off.

He had insisted that there was nothing in his account, and every one of his accounts that were frozen had nothing inside them.

He didn’t even flinch. He only sat in his chair with his back straight and a blank face as if the judge had just announced the weather. 

I would have been convinced that the sentence had got nothing on him but the tightness in his jaw gave him away. 

His lawyer leaned over and whispered something urgent to him, but he didn’t respond. He just turned his head and looked straight at me.

Then the bailiffs moved in and led him away in handcuffs.

Now the courtroom slowly emptied and reporters rushed out to file their stories.

By tomorrow morning, the entire industry would know every detail and my name would be dragged through the mud again.

I started imagining the headlines.

“The CEO who was betrayed by his own partner and a woman carrying the child he thought was his.”

I stayed rooted in my seat until the last person left.

When the courtroom was finally empty, I stood up slowly, my legs feeling heavy as I walked out into the bright afternoon sun.

The reporters had mostly gone, but a few lingered, maybe waiting for me. I kept my head down and pushed past them without a word.



When I got home, I stood in the driveway for a long time, staring at my house.

Then I sighed and called my real estate agent.

“Sell it,” I said when she answered the call.

I had been contemplating selling it and she had also been advising me not to sell my house off because the market wasn’t very favorable.

“As fast as possible please,” I added.

“Alex… are you sure?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“The market…” 

I quickly cut her off before she could land.

“I don’t have a choice,” my voice went low.

Then I hung up and went inside.

I packed my clothes, books, laptop, and a small box of personal documents and left every other thing like the furniture, the expensive art pieces on the wall, and the expensive kitchen wares behind.

None of them mattered anymore,

By evening, the agent had already lined up a buyer with a cash offer way below market value, but I accepted it anyway.

The papers were signed.

I handed over the keys and walked away with a bag of cash that felt meaningless.

I drove around the city for hours, not sure where I was going. Eventually, I stopped at a modest apartment complex on the quiet side of the town.

The building was plain and nothing close to luxurious with small balconies.

It was the kind of place where young people and families on a tight budget live.

I paid three months’ rent in cash and moved in the same day.

The apartment was tiny.

It had one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a living room that doubled as a dining area. The walls were bare white and the carpet on the floor was torn into pieces.

I set the small box I carried from my car down in the corner and sat on the edge of the bare mattress the landlord had left behind.

There was no art and no memories. It was just me.

I stared at the empty wall for a long while and whispered to myself.

“This is rock bottom.”

It was not the dramatic kind with tears and screaming though. It was the kind where you realize you have lost everything and the only person left to blame is yourself.

I couldn’t eat. The thought of food alone made my stomach turn, so I only took water when my throat got too dry.

Days passed after that.

I stayed locked inside my small apartment still eating little to no food.

One afternoon, I forced myself to shower and put on clean clothes. Then I drove to a small park nearby and sat on a bench, watching families and joggers, and people who hadn’t had their entire world destroyed pass by. 

And at that moment, I thought about Joan.

I thought about the way she had pulled up in her car and saved me from the reporters that day outside the office, the way she had listened in the coffee shop when I told her everything, and the brief moment when I felt her hand on mine.

Then I remembered the news about her breakup with Dave.

She didn’t need my mess, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I went back to the apartment and sat on the mattress again, staring at the bare wall.

My mind drifted back to the day Marcus was sentenced.

Even if he rotted in prison, there was no way I was getting my company back.

I wanted to give up and stop fighting.

I wanted to disappear.

I lay back on the thin mattress, staring at the ceiling as night fell.

Even though Marcus had gotten fifteen years, the sentence felt like it would never end.



DAVE WILTON’S POV

I stepped out of my office building just a few minutes after 6pm, loosening my tie as the evening air hit my face. The meeting had run long. 

It was another strategy session about the new sustainability project but my mind wasn’t on work. 

It hadn’t been on work for several days.

I was tired, so tired of pretending I was fine when I wasn’t.

I had told Joan I understood and that I wouldn’t fight for someone who wasn’t ready.

I meant it but the pain was still there.

I walked straight to the parking lot, and there I overheard a familiar voice talking to someone on the phone.

I wanted to ignore it at first, but when I heard the first few words, I couldn’t.

“You can’t do shit. I gave you a whole lot of money just so you could come between them and tarnish their image, I even got you out of the police cell and now you are asking for another payment? You must be out of your mind.”

“What!” I gasped.

“Isn’t that about me?”