“You vindictive old bitch!” Trevor roared. The terror had turned back into venom. “Because I put you in your place? You came into my house, insulted my wife, belittled my career, and now you’re throwing a tantrum? I will sue you! I will take every dime you have! I am the Vice President of Sutter Commercial! I run your company!”
“You don’t run anything, Trevor,” I said quietly. “You sit in an office Arthur and I built, behind a desk Arthur paid for, drawing a salary you haven’t earned. And as for suing me… Nathan Vance is sitting right across from me. He’s eager for your call.”
I tapped the red icon on the screen. The call ended.
Nathan looked at me over the rims of his reading glasses. “Do you want to initiate the second phase now, or do you want to rest? You haven’t slept, Gloria. You need to see a physician about those ribs.”
“I saw Dr. Evans at six this morning,” I said, adjusting the collar of my coat to hide the purple finger marks on my throat. “He took X-rays. Hairline fracture on the seventh rib. Severe soft-tissue contusions. He documented everything. It’s all in the medical dossier.”
I stood up. My knees popped, and a sharp throb shot through my side, but I didn’t lean on the armrest. I had spent forty years walking steel girders and directing concrete pours in the dead heat of Houston Julys. I wasn’t about to crumble now in front of my own lawyer.
“Call the locks team for the corporate offices,” I told Nathan. “And notify the board of directors. An emergency meeting of Sutter Infrastructure Holdings is called for tomorrow morning at eight sharp. Trevor thinks losing the house was the punishment. He doesn’t understand that the house was just the front door.”
***
Across town, in the leafy, hyper-manicured enclave of River Oaks, Kristen Sutter stood on the front lawn of 42 Willowcreek Lane, wearing a cream-colored silk robe over designer leggings, her bare feet shoved hastily into fur-lined slippers.
Two burly men from an elite asset-recovery firm were hauling two oversized Louis Vuitton suitcases down the grand stone steps and placing them unceremoniously onto the damp grass. Behind them, a locksmith was already kneeling at the heavy wrought-iron double doors, his cordless drill whining as he bored out the high-security deadbolts.
“You can’t do this!” Kristen shrieked at the Harris County Precinct Constable standing near the curb with his arms folded across his chest. Her mascara was smeared down her cheeks, ruining the porcelain perfection she spent thousands of dollars a month maintaining. “Do you know who we are? My husband is Trevor Sutter! His family owns this city! When his lawyers get here, you’re all going to jail!”
The constable, a weathered man named Miller who had seen every flavor of wealthy entitlement Texas had to offer, didn’t even shift his weight. He merely tapped the certified court order clipped to his aluminum clipboard.
“Ma’am, this order is signed by a district judge and backed by the registered corporate deed holder. You are trespassing on private property. The new owners have instructed us to permit you to take two suitcases of personal clothing. The rest of the house is sealed. If you cross that threshold again, I will cuff you and transport you to the central processing jail. Now, I suggest you call an Uber.”
A neighbor walking an immaculate labradoodle paused on the sidewalk, pretending to check their phone while drinking in every second of the spectacle. Kristen caught the woman’s eye and let out a strangled gasp of pure humiliation. The neighborhood gossip circuit would have this across the River Oaks Country Club dining room before lunch service was over.
Her phone buzzed violently in her trembling hand. It was Trevor.
“Trevor!” she sobbed, not caring who heard her. “They threw me out! They threw my bags in the dirt! Mrs. Kensington just saw everything! Where are you? Why aren’t you fixing this?!”
“I’m coming right now,” Trevor gasped over the line, the sound of his Porsche’s engine roaring in the background. “Get in your car. Meet me at the St. Regis. I’ll handle this. I swear to God, Kristen, I will handle this.”
“You better,” she hissed, her voice suddenly devoid of tears, replaced by a cold, calculating fury. “Because if you think for one second I signed up to live out of a hotel while that dried-up old crone humiliates us, you are out of your mind. Fix it, Trevor. Or don’t bother coming to the room.”
She hung up, grabbed the handles of her expensive luggage, and dragged them through the damp grass toward her white Mercedes SUV parked in the driveway. But as she pressed the key fob, nothing happened.
