Chapter 6 - A Lesson in Weight and Leverage
At 10:15 PM, a black town car pulled up to the service entrance of the Holloway & Sons corporate headquarters on High Street.
The building was a nineteen-story tower of smoked glass and granite. The top floor was still illuminated. Arthur Holloway, sixty-two years old, with silver hair, an aristocratic profile, and the nervous stomach of an embezzler who had spent fifteen years balancing on a razor blade, sat behind a desk of Scandinavian teak.
The office door opened without a knock.
Arthur looked up, irritation flaring across his face. “I told security that I was not to be disturbed until the audit—”
The words died in his throat.
Victor Vance walked into the room. Behind him, Leo stepped through the door and turned the thumb-latch on the heavy rosewood portal.
Arthur’s face lost every vestige of color. He stood up so quickly his leather swivel chair struck the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.
“Victor,” Arthur choked out, his hands fluttering toward his tie. “We... our meeting wasn't scheduled until the third of next month. The dividend checks for the fourth quarter are already being processed by accounting. I swear to you, the delay was on the municipal side—”
Victor did not look at the art on the walls. He did not look at Arthur’s trembling hands. He walked across the plush carpet, pulled out a chrome-framed guest chair, and sat down.
“Sit down, Arthur,” Victor said.
Arthur sank back into his chair, his fingers gripping the edge of the teak desk until his knuckles showed white. “What is this about? If it’s about the concrete supplier on the south pier, we renegotiated the margin—”
Victor removed an envelope from his interior pocket and placed it on the glass desk blotter.
“Inside that envelope,” Victor said, “is a flash drive. On that drive are forty-eight minutes of high-definition video recorded between 8:00 PM and 9:30 PM this evening inside an apartment on 8th Street.”
Arthur blinked, confused. “Eighth Street? What does that have to do with—”
“The apartment belongs to Claraara Linwood,” Victor continued, his voice calm, measured, and flat. “Your son Trent broke the deadbolt with his boot at 8:12 PM. At 8:18 PM, he used a pocketknife to shred three thousand dollars’ worth of personal property. At 8:34 PM, he ingested four ounces of gin and made a telephone call to your home line. He informed your wife that Claraara had ‘gone crazy’ and that he was going to teach her a lesson she wouldn't forget when she returned from work.”
Arthur’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. A deep, ugly crimson flush began to rise from his starched collar into his sagging jowls.
“Trent... Trent has had a difficult few months,” Arthur stammered, his paternal instinct immediately attempting to construct the standard defense. “The girl is unstable, Victor. She left him without warning. She took things that belonged to the condo. Trent was simply trying to recover his property. It’s a domestic disagreement. It has nothing to do with our business.”
Victor leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk.
The temperature in the executive suite seemed to drop ten degrees.
“Arthur,” Victor said softly. “You have known me for fourteen years. In those fourteen years, have you ever known me to care about a domestic disagreement?”
Arthur swallowed hard. The silence stretched between them until the hum of the ventilation system sounded like a jet engine.
“No,” Arthur whispered.
“Then ask yourself why I am in your office at ten o'clock on a Thursday night.”
Arthur looked at the small white envelope on his desk. Then, slowly, the reality of the situation broke through his vanity.
“Who is she to you?” Arthur asked, his voice shaking.
“She is someone who asked me to make it stop,” Victor replied. “And because she asked, her safety is now an asset on my balance sheet. Your son has spent three weeks treating that asset like a punching bag. Last night, he dragged her through a restaurant in front of forty people. An hour ago, he destroyed an apartment I have chosen to place under my protection.”
Arthur raised both hands in a pleading gesture. “Victor, please. Trent is young. He’s impulsive. He doesn't know who you are. He thinks you're just some... some stranger.”
“Then you have failed as a father,” Victor said. “Because a man who raises a boy to believe he can break women with impunity has raised a dog. And when a dog bites the wrong hand, it is not the dog that pays the veterinary bill. It is the owner.”
Victor stood up. He tapped the envelope once with his index finger.
“Here is what will occur, Arthur. You will call Trent now. You will use the speakerphone. You will instruct him to exit that apartment immediately. He will leave his keys on the counter. He will walk down the stairs, get into his vehicle, and drive directly to this office.”
“And then?” Arthur’s voice was barely a croak.
“And then,” Victor said, “you will hand him a one-way ticket to your sister’s firm in Calgary. He will resign from the junior partnership here tonight. He will forfeit his trust distribution for thirty-six months. And if he ever returns to this city—if he ever dials her number, if he ever speaks her name to a mutual acquaintance—I will call the eight-million-dollar mezzanine loan on the South Wharf project tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM.”
Arthur gasped. “That will bankrupt the company! We’ll lose the entire firm!”
Victor looked down at the old man with eyes as black and cold as deep water beneath harbor ice.
May you like
“Then I suggest you explain that to your son before he finishes his gin,” Victor said.
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