Chapter 4 - The Smear Campaign
At nine o'clock the following morning, Garrett Vance walked out of the Manhattan Detention Complex on White Street.
He had spent the night in a holding cell with twenty other men, stripped of his Tom Ford suit, his platinum watch, and his pride. His lawyer, a slimy criminal defense attorney named Arthur Vance—no relation, but equally mercenary—had managed to secure his release on unsecured bail, thanks in part to Vivian weeping dramatically in front of the arraignment judge about her son’s stellar civic reputation.
Outside the courthouse steps, a swarm of freelance photographers and local reporters were waiting. The video of the incident at L’Hiver had been leaked to an anonymous Instagram account at two in the morning; by breakfast, it had garnered over three million views across TikTok and Twitter with the hashtag #WineTantrumHusband.
Garrett, unshaven, his eyes wild and dark circles bruising his skin, pulled his coat tightly around his shoulders.
“Mr. Vance! Did you assault your wife over an eight-thousand-dollar dinner bill?”
“Is Vance Logistics facing bankruptcy?”
Vivian pushed her way past the microphones, her face concealed behind massive designer sunglasses. “Leave us alone! My son is the victim of a coordinated character assassination by a deeply disturbed, vindictive woman who cannot handle her own marital failures! A full statement will be issued by our legal team!”
Garrett climbed into the back of Vivian’s hired town car, slamming the door so hard the window rattled.
“Did you get the money?” Garrett snarled, turning to his mother the second the car pulled away from the curb. “Did you wire the funds to Kestrel Holdings? If that payment bounces on Friday, they’ll break my legs, Mom! You don't understand who those people are!”
Vivian’s face tightened. “I don't have the cash, Garrett! You know all my capital is tied up in the Cayman fund, and the bank froze the transfer this morning because of an 'audit inquiry'!”
“What?” Garrett screamed, clawing at his hair. “Who initiated an audit?”
“Who do you think?” Vivian spat. “That little viper. She locked me out of the family trust portal. And when I went to the penthouse this morning to collect our things, my key didn't work. The doorman told me—to my face!—that I am permanently barred from the premises under threat of criminal trespass!”
Garrett pulled out his phone, his hands shaking violently as he dialed my number.
*“The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”*
He cursed, throwing the phone against the leather seat. “She thinks she can destroy me? She thinks she can throw me in jail, ruin my reputation, and just walk away with everything?”
Arthur, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned around slowly. “Garrett, listen to me. The footage from L’Hiver is catastrophic. The public perception is entirely against you. If you go to war with her in a conventional divorce, her attorneys will drag your financial records into public court, and based on what you told me about those loan guarantees... that means federal prison.”
“So what do you suggest, Arthur?” Garrett hissed. “I just roll over? Let her take my company, my house, my life?”
Arthur adjusted his gold cufflinks. “You don't fight her in court. You fight her where she lives: in the boardroom and the press. Claire’s entire power comes from her position as chairwoman of the Vance-Sterling Foundation and her family’s real estate trust. If we make her look unstable, erratic, and vengeful, we can force her board to suspend her voting rights under the fiduciary incapacity clause.”
A slow, vicious smile began to spread across Garrett’s pale face. “The board members are all old men who served with her father. They hate public scandals. If they think she’s having a nervous breakdown, they’ll appoint a conservator to manage the trust.”
“Precisely,” Arthur said. “We launch a counter-narrative immediately. Leaked medical records—or documents that look like them—suggesting she’s been abusing prescription medication. Statements from staff claiming she’s been verbally abusive and paranoid for months. We frame the incident at L’Hiver as the desperate intervention of a loving husband trying to stop his self-destructive wife from humiliating herself.”
Vivian nodded vigorously, grabbing her son’s arm. “Yes! That’s brilliant. We call Richard Sterling, the vice chair. He’s always hated that Claire inherited the majority shares instead of him. He’ll back us.”
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Garrett picked up his phone, his eyes glittering with cold malice. “Let’s see how strong Claire feels when her own father’s company locks her out of the building.”
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