Chapter 4 - The House of Glass
The phone rang twice before the speaker clicked on. Mateo tapped the button, shifting the call to open speakerphone.
In the breathless silence of the ballroom, the dialing tone and the subsequent connection echoed against the gilded cornices.
"Mateo?"
The voice that came through was gravelly, aged, and breathless with late-night urgency. It was Marcus Marlowe.
"Marcus," Mateo said evenly. "Are you awake?"
"Of course I’m awake. I was expecting your call regarding the terminal four lease agreements. We’ve been waiting on your signatures since Tuesday. Is everything in order?"
Mateo looked directly at Ethan, whose face had now turned the color of damp skim milk.
"Everything is canceled, Marcus."
A heavy pause hung over the line. "What? Mateo, what are you talking about? We’ve invested forty million into the terminal four retrofitting. The municipal port authority signed off this morning. What do you mean, canceled?"
"At ten-twenty-eight this evening," Mateo said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, "your son Ethan took a pair of shears and cut off my wife’s hair at the Maritime Gala. When that did not satisfy him, he had his associate pin her arms while they took an electric razor to her scalp."
Silence.
A silence so dense and complete that the faint hiss of the speakerphone sounded like rushing wind.
"Marcus?" Mateo asked.
"...Put him on," Marcus Marlowe whispered. The gravelly confidence was completely gone, replaced by a trembling, sickly horror. "Put my son on the phone right now."
Mateo extended his arm, holding the phone out toward Ethan.
Ethan’s hands shook so badly he could barely touch the device. "D-Dad? Dad, listen, it was an accident, she spilled wine all over—"
"You stupid, worthless, arrogant piece of shit!" Marcus Marlowe’s roar erupted from the speaker with such raw, unbridled fury that people three tables away flinched. "What did you do?! Tell me what you did right now!"
"Dad, she was a waitress! She looked like a catering temp! I didn't know—"
"She is Elena Vance!" Marcus screamed, his voice breaking into a ragged sob of rage. "Do you have any idea what you have done? Do you have any concept of what you just threw away?! The terminal leases represent seventy percent of our operating liquidity! The Vance Group holds our debt notes on the entire maritime fleet!"
"Dad—"
"Shut your mouth!" Marcus bellowed. "Mateo—Mateo, please. He’s an idiot. He’s drunk. I will bring him to your residence tonight. He will apologize on his hands and knees. I will pay whatever restitution you name—ten million, twenty million, name the figure!"
Mateo pulled the phone back toward his mouth.
"My wife’s dignity is not for sale, Marcus. And neither is her hair."
"Mateo, please—if you pull the terminal leases, Marlowe Shipping goes into technical default by eight o'clock tomorrow morning! We will be insolvent before the opening bell!"
"Then I suggest you call your bankruptcy attorneys tonight," Mateo said calmly. "Because at eight-fifteen tomorrow morning, Vance Capital will initiate immediate foreclosure on your four primary container vessels. Furthermore, I am revoking your family's access to every commercial harbor operated under our port trust."
"Mateo, no! Don't destroy fifty years of work over a—"
Mateo tapped the red screen.
The call disconnected.
The ballroom was as silent as a crypt.
Ethan stood there, his jaw slack, his hands hanging limp at his sides. In less than two minutes, the entire foundation of his existence—the wealth, the prestige, the safety net that had shielded him from consequences for twenty-six years—had been vaporized in front of three hundred witnesses.
Mateo did not look at him again. He turned his head slightly toward the entrance.
"Christopher."
The head of Vance Security, a towering man with graying temples and an unyielding stare, stepped forward instantly. "Yes, Mr. Vance."
May you like
"Lock the doors."
***
