Chapter 5 - The Desperate Counterattack
By nightfall, news of the massive corporate collapse of Harrington Luxe had sent shockwaves through the high-society circles of the city. Photos of Vivian Harrington standing on the sidewalk in her silk bathrobe next to piles of garbage bags were trending on social media.
Graham and Vivian were ruined. They had been forced to check into a cheap, two-star motel on the outskirts of the city, using the small amount of cash Graham had managed to scrape out of his coat pockets.
Inside the cramped, dingy motel room, the air smelled of stale smoke and old carpet. Vivian was sitting on the edge of a stained bed, sobbing uncontrollably, while Graham paced back and forth like a trapped animal.
"How could this happen?!" Vivian wailed, pulling her hair. "That horrible girl! That snake! She tricked us! She planned this from the very beginning!"
"Shut up, Mom!" Graham snapped, his face pale and drawn. "Just shut up! You were the one who insisted on throwing her out last night! You were the one who wanted to humiliate her!"
"I did it for you!" Vivian shrieked. "How was I supposed to know she was an eight-billion-dollar CEO?! Who hides that kind of money?! She’s crazy!"
"We have nothing left!" Graham yelled, slamming his hand against the wall. "My bank accounts are frozen! My car is gone! My career is destroyed! I had to sign the divorce papers just to keep out of prison!"
Vivian stopped crying. Her eyes narrowed, a dark, malicious glint appearing in her tear-streaked eyes. "No... no, Graham. We still have leverage."
Graham stopped pacing, looking at his mother with desperation. "Leverage? What leverage? She took everything!"
"The babies," Vivian whispered, a cruel smile forming on her lips. "Those children are your biological sons. The law always favors fathers who want to see their children. We can file an emergency petition for emergency custody! We can claim that she is an unstable, negligent mother who works too much to care for newborn infants!"
Graham’s eyes lit up with a sudden, desperate hope. "Custody? If I get custody... or even shared custody... she’ll have to pay child support! Millions of dollars a month!"
"Exactly!" Vivian said, grabbing Graham’s arm eagerly. "We go to a sleazy, high-profile tabloid attorney—someone who loves attacking rich executives. We run to the news outlets tomorrow morning! We paint her as a cold-hearted billionaire who abandoned her husband and uses her wealth to keep a father away from his newborn twin boys!"
"The media will love it," Graham breathed, a manic grin returning to his face. "A rich, arrogant female CEO refusing to let a father see his babies. We’ll turn the entire public against her! She’ll have to pay us off just to protect her company's reputation!"
Early the next morning, Graham and Vivian walked into the offices of Victor Vance, a notorious legal mercenary known for sensationalizing high-profile celebrity divorces and dragging wealthy public figures through the media mud.
Victor Vance leaned back in his leather chair, listening to Graham’s selective, heavily twisted story.
"So," Victor Vance said, tapping his pen against his desk, "you’re telling me that Evelyn Vale—the billionaire CEO—turned cold overnight, kicked you out of your family home, used corporate lawyers to force you into signing a coerced divorce agreement, and is currently keeping your newborn sons isolated in a hotel room away from their father?"
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"Yes!" Graham lied expertly, wiping away a fake tear. "I was terrified, Mr. Vance! She threatened to ruin me if I didn't sign those papers! I love my boys! I just want to be a father to my sons, but she’s using her billions to destroy my life and keep my family apart!"
"This is golden," Victor Vance smiled, seeing a massive payday and an explosion of personal publicity. "We won't just file for custody. We’re holding a press conference on the steps of the family court at noon today. By two o'clock, Evelyn Vale’s name will be dragged through every mud pit in the country."
