Chapter 9 - The Collapse of the House of Cards
Reagan’s champagne glass slipped from her fingers, shattering against the marble floor with a piercing crack. Her face turned from radiant joy to a pale, terrifying mask of horror.
"Camden...?" she whispered, her voice cracking through the silence of the room.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, mother," I said, my voice echoing through the ballroom as Maya walked in behind us, followed by four federal agents in jackets that read FBI Corporate Fraud Division.
Carter scrambled back from the podium, his hands shaking so violently he dropped the gold pen. "This... this is an outrage! Finnley is an escaped convict! He kidnapped a sick old man from a medical facility!"
"I am not sick, Carter," my father’s voice rang out, no longer a frail rasp, but the powerful, authoritative rumble that had commanded boardroom meetings for thirty years. "The only sickness I suffered from was the poison your mother was paying Dr. Harrison to put in my veins."
Maya stepped forward, holding a tablet connected to the ballroom’s massive projector screens. With a single tap, the financial records from Unit 108, the forged power of attorney, and the recorded confession from Dr. Harrison—whom the FBI had picked up three hours ago—flooded the screens for every investor and journalist to see.
"Three years ago, my client, Finnley Dennis, was wrongfully imprisoned for a crime engineered by Reagan and Carter Dennis to cover a two-million-dollar gambling deficit," Maya announced to the stunned crowd. "Today, we aren't just presenting evidence of corporate fraud. We are presenting evidence of attempted murder via medical proxy."
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Reagan turned to run toward the backstage exit, but her path was immediately blocked by two federal agents. The handcuffs clicked around her manicured wrists with a cold, metallic finality.
Carter dropped to his knees behind the podium, his head in his hands as the realization of his total, absolute ruin washed over him.
