Chapter 5 - The Summoning
In Manhattan, Andrew Weston was drowning.
His penthouse had become a tomb. The cleaning staff had quit after their payroll checks bounced. The concierge looked at him with veiled contempt every time he walked through the lobby.
Weston Capital Management had officially been forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring. His board had voted eleven to one to remove him as CEO, stripping him of his corporate credit cards, his car service, and his executive health insurance.
Lila had vanished completely. The rumors were that she had already attached herself to a sixty-year-old real estate heir in Miami, posting selfies on superyachts while scrubbing every photo of Andrew from her social media accounts.
Andrew sat at his kitchen counter, clutching a glass of cheap bourbon, staring at his computer screen.
His email inbox was a graveyard of foreclosure notices, margin calls, and hateful messages from ruined investors.
Then, an email arrived with a high-priority crimson flag.
Sender: **VANCE GLOBAL LEGAL GROUP - OFFICES OF HAROLD STERLING, ESQ.**
Andrew frowned, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. *Vance? Harold Sterling?* Harold Sterling was the most terrifying corporate litigation attorney on the Eastern seaboard. He charged five thousand dollars an hour and only represented sovereign wealth funds and old-money dynasties.
Andrew clicked the attachment.
The document was titled: **NOTICE OF DEPOSITION AND FINAL ADJUDICATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AND ASSET RECOVERY.**
*Respondent: Andrew Thomas Weston.*
*Petitioner: Emma Victoria Vance.*
Andrew’s heart stopped.
He blinked, convinced the bourbon was playing tricks on his mind.
*Emma Victoria Vance.*
He scrolled down furiously. Attached to the petition was a certified copy of Emma’s birth certificate.
*Father: Julian Vance. Mother: Eleanor Vance. Grandfather: Arthur Vance.*
"No," Andrew gasped aloud, jumping up from the stool so violently the bourbon glass shattered on the Italian marble floor. "No... no, no, no!"
His phone rang. It was Mark Sterling, his former chairman—and Harold Sterling’s distant cousin.
Andrew snatched the phone, screaming into the receiver: "Mark! What is this? What is this sick joke?"
"It’s not a joke, Andrew," Mark said, his voice entirely devoid of pity. "Did you honestly never ask where Emma came from? Did you never wonder why a girl with an art history degree and no family wealth carried herself with the poise of an empress?"
"Her name was Miller!" Andrew shrieked, tearing at his hair. "She told me her parents were farmers in Pennsylvania!"
"Her father was Julian Vance, Arthur Vance’s second son," Mark explained coldly. "He retired to an organic farm in Pennsylvania because he hated high society! Emma rebelled against the family fortune because she wanted an authentic life! She hid her name because she wanted a man who loved her for who she was, not the two-hundred-billion-dollar empire behind her!"
The words hit Andrew like a physical blow. The room spun wildly.
*Two. Hundred. Billion.*
Emma. His Emma. The woman who shopped at regular grocery stores, who hemmed his trousers by hand, who spent hours baking him fresh sourdough bread because she knew he was stressed.
She was a Vance.
She wasn't a nobody. She was American royalty.
"The gala..." Andrew whimpered, collapsing to his knees among the shards of broken glass, oblivious to the bourbon soaking into his trousers. "The kiss..."
"Arthur Vance watched that kiss on the live broadcast," Mark said, his tone grim. "Dominic Vance, her brother, personally authorized the short against your company. They didn't just ruin your stock, Andrew. They bought your life. You owe their holding company one hundred and forty million dollars in defaulted debt."
"I... I have to see her," Andrew sobbed, tears of sheer panic and humiliation burning his eyes. "I need to talk to her! She loved me, Mark! She loved me more than anything! She wouldn't let them do this to me!"
"She isn't the woman you knew, Andrew. You killed that woman in front of five hundred people," Mark said. "Be at the Vance Tower conference center tomorrow morning at ten. If you miss the deposition, the sheriff will have you in custody by noon for fraudulent asset concealment."
The line clicked off.
Andrew remained on the floor in the dark, clutching his chest, feeling the crushing weight of the absolute, irreversible truth.
He had held the crown jewel of the world in the palm of his hand.
May you like
And he had traded it for a fistful of glittering dirt.
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