Chapter 4 - The Motel and the Mirror
The room smelled of stale tobacco, cheap disinfectant, and damp carpet.
Richard sat on the edge of a sagging queen-sized mattress inside Room 114 of the Windy City Motor Inn.
Outside his door, the roar of heavy semi-trucks driving along the nearby interstate kept up a relentless, droning rhythm—a cruel, mocking reminder of the shipping empire he no longer controlled.
He looked down at his lap. Beside his duffel bag lay his smartphone. The screen lit up every few minutes with news notifications:
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: SULLIVAN FREIGHT CEO OUSTED AMID MASSIVE ASSET FRAUD FRAUD ALLEGATIONS. BLOOMBERG: APEX HOLDINGS SEIZES CONTROL OF MIDWEST LOGISTICS GIANT. WALL STREET JOURNAL: RICHARD SULLIVAN’S FORTUNE FROZEN IN HISTORIC CORPORATE TAKEOVER.
His phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID: Board Member Henderson. He answered frantically, pressing the phone to his ear.
"Henderson! Thank God! You need to call an emergency board meeting—"
"Richard," Henderson’s voice cut in coldly. "Don't ever call this number again. The federal prosecutors have already subpoenaed our email servers. If you attempt to contact any members of the board, we will file a formal restraining order for witness tampering."
Click.
Richard dropped the phone onto the bed. He tried calling his old golf buddies, his executive friends, the politicians he had donated thousands to over the years.
Every single call went straight to voicemail. Some numbers had already been disconnected. The dozens of people who had laughed at his jokes, drank his fine scotch, and kissed his ring at corporate galas had vanished like ghosts into the night.
He was completely, totally alone.
He stood up slowly, his joints stiff from the damp chill of the room, and walked into the cramped, yellowing bathroom.
He stared into the cracked mirror above the sink.
The man looking back at him didn't look like an untouchable titan of industry. His silver-flecked hair was matted and messy, his eyes were bloodshot and sunken, and deep, dark bags hung under his pale eyes. Stubble was sprouting along his jaw, and his three-thousand-dollar suit was wrinkled, stained, and ruined.
Without his title, without his money, without his luxury cars, Richard Sullivan was just a pathetic, forty-eight-year-old man standing in a cheap motel bathroom.
A wave of bitter, violent self-hatred surged through his veins. He raised his fist and slammed it against the mirror, shattering the glass into a spiderweb of cracks.
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"Damn you, Maggie!" he screamed into the empty room, blood dripping from his knuckles into the stained porcelain sink. "Damn you!"
He collapsed onto the bathroom floor, pulling his knees to his chest, and for the first time in thirty years, Richard Sullivan wept uncontrollably into the dark.
