Chapter 2 - The Midnight Eviction
The Long Island rain was relentless, pounding against the black iron gates of Blackwood Manor like a shower of lead shot.
Cole Maddox hit the asphalt outside the outer gate on his hands and knees. The cold water instantly soaked through the knees of his thousand-dollar trousers, biting into his skin. Beside him, Serena was sobbing uncontrollably, her red dress plastered to her frame, her high heels lost somewhere along the half-mile private driveway Dennis and three silent security guards had forced them to walk.
"Get up," Cole growled, shoving himself to his feet. His chest burned from Dennis’s strike. His head pounded with the catastrophic realization of the last sixty minutes.
"Cole, my shoes... my bag... my jewelry is in the master bedroom!" Serena wailed, her mascara running in black streaks down her cheeks. "The Cartier necklace! You gave it to me! Tell them to open the gate!"
"Shut up!" Cole bellowed, whirling on her with such fury that she stumbled backward, slipping on the wet leaves. "Just shut your damn mouth!"
He pulled his smartphone from his coat. The screen was cracked, but the display flickered to life. He opened his banking app.
*Error: Account Suspended. Contact Primary Administrator.*
He dialed his personal banker in Zurich. The call didn't even ring; it routed straight to an automated message stating the line was no longer in service. He dialed his primary logistics coordinator at the Port of Newark.
"Mark! It’s Maddox! Mobilize the south warehouse team. I need twenty men at Blackwood right now. Bring heavy iron!"
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. The sound of rain hissed through the receiver.
"Mark?"
"Cole," Mark’s voice was dead, flat, completely drained of the nervous deference he had displayed for three years. "Don't call this phone again."
"Mark, I pay your salary! I bought your mother’s house!"
"The checks came from North Harbor, Cole. A woman named Miss Bellamy called ten minutes ago. She transferred the pension funds we were promised five years ago into our private trusts. The south warehouse is locked down under new management. If you come within three miles of the docks, the boys have orders to drop you into the harbor with sixty pounds of scrap iron around your ankles."
The line went dead.
Cole dropped his arm. The phone slipped from his fingers, bouncing on the pavement before plunging into the storm drain between the iron rails of the gate.
"Cole?" Serena approached him cautiously, shivering violently. "What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?"
Cole looked through the black bars of the gate. Up the long, winding hill, Blackwood Manor blazed with warm, golden light. Music had started playing again—not the modern jazz Cole had selected to impress his young associates, but the slow, heavy, aristocratic strings of a classical waltz. The Bellamy waltz.
For three years, he had slept beside a ghost. For three years, he had brought his deals home, spread out shipping manifests on the kitchen island, laughed over scotch about how he was squeezing the old families out of Boston, while she poured his tea and adjusted his collar.
*She wasn't serving me,* Cole thought, the bitter bile rising in his throat until he choked on it. *She was taking inventory.*
"Cole!" Serena pulled on his sodden lapel. "I'm freezing! We have to find a car!"
"Get off me," Cole said, his voice dropping into a hollow, dangerous register. He looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time without the lens of his own vanity. The red dress looked cheap now. The arrogance that had excited him when she taunted Nora looked pathetic. She was nothing. A hollow doll he had used to prove he was a king.
"Cole?" she stammered, frightened by the look in his eyes.
"Walk to the highway," he said coldly.
"What? Together?"
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"No," Cole said, turning his back on her and stepping into the dark road that cut through the Long Island woods. "You're on your own, Serena. You wanted to play the boss’s woman. Well, the boss is dead."
***