Chapter 6 - The desperate Measure
Despite the court order, Garrett and Victoria’s desperation drove them to commit an act of absolute madness.
Three weeks after the court hearing, late on a stormy Thursday evening, I was working late at the Vance Global headquarters in downtown San Francisco. My mother was at the Atherton estate with baby Leo, guarded by Marcus and a team of security personnel.
At 9:30 P.M., my executive assistant ran into my office, her face pale.
"Ms. Vance! Security just called from the main lobby!" she gasped. "Garrett Lawson just breached the underground parking garage! He rammed his rented sedan through the security gate!"
My heart hammered in my chest. "Where is he?!"
Before she could answer, the heavy double doors of my executive suite were kicked open.
Garrett stood in the doorway, drenched in rain, holding an iron tire iron in his trembling hand. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and completely unhinged. He looked like a man who had lost everything and had nothing left to live for.
Behind him, Victoria hurried into the room, her hair soaking wet, clutching a manila envelope.
"Garrett! Stop this right now!" I commanded, standing behind my desk and pressing the silent panic button beneath the mahogany frame.
"Shut up! Shut up, Evelyn!" Garrett screamed, swinging the tire iron wildly through the air, smashing an expensive crystal vase sitting on a side table. Shattered glass sprayed across the carpet. "You ruined me! You took my money! You took my company! You took my son! I have nothing left!"
"You did this to yourself, Garrett," I said, keeping my voice cold and focused to stall for time. "You chose to be a bully. You chose to steal from your company."
"We gave you a chance to be part of an elite family!" Victoria spat, her voice trembling with manic rage. "You were nothing before us! A nobody from a farm in Oregon! We made you respectable!"
"Respectable?" I scoffed, taking a slow step back toward the secure panic room hidden behind the bookcase. "Victoria, you are currently trespassing on corporate property with a weapon. You are facing years in federal prison."
"I don't care about prison!" Garrett shrieked, taking a violent step toward my desk, raising the tire iron above his head. "If I can't have my life back, I'm taking yours! Sign the paper! Sign over the shares of Lawson Innovations and lift the restraining order, or I swear to God I'll beat you into a pulp!"
"Sign it!" Victoria screamed, thrusting the manila envelope onto my desk. "Sign it now!"
I looked at Garrett, seeing the pathetic, broken boy beneath the violent exterior. He thought money and physical strength made him powerful. He had never understood what real strength was.
Suddenly, the heavy glass windows of the executive suite were shattered as four heavily armed SWAT officers rappelled down from the roof, bursting into the room in a shower of glass and thunderous flashbangs.
BANG! FLASH!
The blinding light and disorienting sound sent Garrett stumbling backward, dropping the tire iron as he clutched his ears, screaming in agony.
"POLICE! DROP TO THE GROUND! DO IT NOW!" thunderous voices shouted through the smoke.
Within three seconds, Marcus and six armed corporate security officers burst through the main office doors, while SWAT officers tackled Garrett to the carpet, twisting his arms behind his back and snapping heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.
Victoria was thrown against the wall, shrieking like a madwoman as an officer cuffed her hands behind her back.
"Get off me! I’m Victoria Lawson! You can't touch me! Do you know who I am?!" she screamed, her face pressed against the cold glass of my office window.
Marcus stepped up beside me, pulling a protective Kevlar shield over my body. "Are you injured, Ms. Vance?"
"I'm fine, Marcus," I said, breathing heavily as I adjusted my jacket.
I walked over to where Garrett was pinned against the carpet by two SWAT officers. His wild, terrifying energy was completely gone, replaced by pitiful, sniveling sobs as steel pressed into his wrists.
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I knelt down beside him, looking into his tear-streaked, defeated face.
"You asked me if I remembered who paid for the food I ate, Garrett," I whispered softly, so only he could hear. "Now you’re going to find out who pays for the food in state prison."
