Chapter 2 - The Question in the Cold
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I walked past the coat check and the grand marble staircase, turning down a quiet service hallway until I found an isolated courtyard beneath a vaulted glass roof.
Snow tapped softly against the glass overhead. I sat on the freezing edge of a dry stone fountain and loosened my silk bow tie.
My phone vibrated in my tuxedo jacket.
MAYA MERCER.
I ignored the call. A second later, a text message appeared from my attorney, David Vance.
Do not speak with Nolan tonight. We found something. Call me immediately.
My pulse quickened, but I turned the screen facedown on the stone beside me. For five minutes, I just wanted to escape the lawyers, the reporters, the hushed whispers, and the people who treated my name like a contagious disease.
Then I heard rubber wheels squeaking across the wet flagstones.
A grey cleaning cart rolled through the courtyard doors, pushed by a woman wearing grey work pants, white sneakers, and a navy hotel jacket. She stopped when she saw me sitting alone in the cold shadow of the fountain.
I braced myself for another look of pity, disgust, or awkward recognition.
Instead, she stepped closer, resting her hands on the handle of her mop bucket.
"Sir?" she asked softly.
I raised my head, staring up at her. Her brown eyes studied my face, but there was no malice in them, no nervous calculation, and no sign that she recognized my face from the front page of the Tribune.
Just genuine human concern.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
The question hit me harder than all seven rejections combined. My throat locked up, and for three seconds, the former CEO of Mercer Dynamics couldn't speak.
Before I could answer, my phone vibrated again against the cold stone.
I looked down at the bright screen. My attorney had sent another message.
May you like
Ethan, we know who sent the documents to the SEC. It was routed from a private server inside Nolan’s penthouse.
Suddenly, the muffled sound of laughter floating out from the ballroom behind me didn't sound so harmless anymore.
