Chapter 8 - The Cornered Wolf
Julian looked at his mother, then at his father, his chest heaving with panicked breaths.
"Dad, tell her no! You have the Vance Family Trust! You can inject thirty million and build a new engine!" Julian pleaded.
Arthur Vance looked at his son with pure contempt. "The trust doesn't finance vanity projects for abusive morons. If Sterling Capital calls in their loan, they will seize the trust's commercial real estate as collateral. You got yourself into this mess because you couldn't control your ego or your mother's vicious mouth."
Arthur turned to Emma. "If Julian signs, the Vance family name remains untarnished regarding the debt?"
"The debt will be fully paid under Aegis management," Emma confirmed. "The Vance name will be completely scrubbed from the corporate registry. The company will be rebranded by noon."
"Julian, sign it," Arthur ordered cold-bloodedly.
"Dad! No! That's my life's work!" Julian screamed, tears of sheer frustration spilling down his cheeks.
"You didn't do any work!" Arthur slammed his hand on the table. "Sign the paper, or I cut you off from the trust entirely, revoke your trust-fund allowance, and leave you to pay your own criminal defense attorneys when Evelyn goes to prison!"
Evelyn let out a choked wail, dropping onto the couch. "Julian, please! I can't go to jail! Think of my standing in the auxiliary club! Think of what people will say!"
Julian stared at his mother, the very woman whose toxic approval he had spent his whole life chasing at the expense of everyone else. Now, she was throwing him under the bus without a second thought to save her own skin.
With trembling fingers, Julian picked up the gold Montblanc pen Marcus placed before him.
He looked at Emma, his eyes pleading for a shred of the soft, accommodating woman he used to bully at the dinner table.
"Emma... please. Don't do this. I loved you."
Emma met his gaze with absolute stone. "You didn't love me, Julian. You loved having someone you could step on to make yourself feel tall."
Julian swallowed hard, pressed the pen to the paper, and scrawled his signature across the transfer deed.
Emma took the signed document, handed it to Marcus, and stood up.
"Thank you, gentlemen. You have until 1:00 PM to clear your personal belongings out of the executive suite."
As Emma turned to leave, Julian yelled after her, "You think you won, Emma?! You're going to fail! You don't know how to run a multi-million-dollar logistics empire alone!"
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Emma paused at the door, glancing back over her shoulder with a smirk that chilled Julian to the bone.
"I’ve been running it from the kitchen table for two years, Julian. Today, I just moved to the corner office."
