Chapter 4 - The Fall of Wellington Law

By 8:00 AM the following morning, the financial world woke up to a seismic shift.
The front page of the Wall Street Journal featured a massive headline:
MORGAN FINANCIAL TERMINATES ALL CONTRACTS WITH WELLINGTON LAW; PURCHASES AND LIQUIDATES FIRM’S ASSETS.
In a modest hotel room on the outskirts of Seattle—the only place Christopher could afford after his credit cards were frozen—the phone was ringing off the hook.
Christopher sat on the edge of the unmade bed, his eyes red-rimmed, holding a cup of lukewarm gas station coffee.
Victoria sat in the corner, wrapped in a cheap blanket, her makeup smeared, crying angrily. “Do something, Christopher! My father called me this morning! He said your family is blacklisted! No one in the state will give us a loan!”
“Shut up, Victoria!” Christopher yelled, slamming his coffee down onto the nightstand. “Just shut your mouth! You wanted the big house! You wanted her ring! You told me she was a nobody!”
The door to the hotel room was suddenly kicked open with a loud BANG!
Three federal agents in suits stepped into the room, flanked by two state troopers.
“Christopher Wellington?” the lead agent asked coldly.
Christopher stood up, his hands shaking violently. “Yes? What is this? What’s going on?”
“You are under arrest for federal tax evasion, wire fraud, and illegal offshore asset concealment related to Wellington Law,” the agent declared, pulling out a set of steel handcuffs.
Christopher paled. “Fraud?! I didn't commit fraud! My mother manages the firm’s offshore accounts!”
“Your mother has already been taken into custody,” the agent replied dispassionately, stepping forward and pinning Christopher’s arms behind his back. “Along with four senior partners at your firm. You have the right to remain silent.”
“Chris! Chris, help me!” Victoria shrieked as an agent stepped toward her. “I didn't do anything! I don't even work there!”
“Victoria Thorne,” the second agent read from a warrant. “You are being detained as an accessory to grand theft regarding the unauthorized removal of heirlooms and personal property from 420 Wellington Drive.”
“Those were Sarah’s things!” Victoria screamed, wrestling against the officer’s grip as hand-irons clicked over her wrists. “She left them!”
“She was thrown out,” the officer corrected her spattingly. “And you took her diamond earrings out of her jewelry box forty minutes after she left. That’s grand larceny.”
As Christopher was dragged out of the motel room in handcuffs, he saw the hotel lobby television playing the morning news.
The screen showed Sarah stepping out of Seattle Grace Hospital, wearing a stunning cream cashmere coat, holding baby Hope in her arms.
Standing beside her were Alexander and Nicholas Morgan, surrounded by fifty private security guards and a fleet of pristine black Rolls-Royces.
Reporters thrust microphones toward Sarah.
“Mrs. Wellington! Mrs. Wellington!” a reporter shouted. “Are you filing for divorce? What do you have to say about the collapse of Wellington Law?”
Sarah stopped. She looked directly into the news camera—directly into the screen that Christopher was watching from his handcuffs.
She didn't look angry. She didn't look bitter.
She looked entirely, beautifully unbothered.
“My name is Sarah Morgan,” she said into the microphone, her voice echoing clearly across every television screen in the nation. “And as for the Wellington family... they are simply a bad dream I have woken up from.”
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She turned, stepped into the back of the armored Rolls-Royce, and disappeared into a life of unimaginable wealth and protection.
Christopher dropped to his knees on the motel lobby carpet, sobbing uncontrollably as the officers dragged him away into the dark.