Chapter 4 - The Escalation
By Saturday morning, the cracks in Nick’s pristine world had widened into chasms.
My phone was filled with frantic, missed calls and increasingly desperate text messages from both Nick and Chloe. I ignored them all, choosing instead to enjoy a quiet, luxurious breakfast of smoked salmon and capers in my suite, followed by a walk through the Pike Place Market—this time, wearing my comfortable cardigan again, because I genuinely liked it, regardless of what my son thought.
At 1:00 p.m., my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. I decided to answer.
"Eleanor? Is this Eleanor?"
The voice was female, high-pitched, and dripping with a forced, manic sweetness. It was Chloe, my daughter-in-law.
"Yes, this is Eleanor," I said calmly.
"Oh, thank goodness!" Chloe gasped, though I could hear the underlying tension in her voice. "Eleanor, sweetie, there has been the most ridiculous misunderstanding! Nick told me about... well, about yesterday. He is just so incredibly stressed with the business, and he didn't realize you were planning to stay. We have plenty of room in the guest wing! Charles and Beatrice would love to meet you. We are hosting a gorgeous brunch right now by the pool. Can we send a car to pick you up from your... motel?"
She practically spat the word motel, as if it were a disease.
"That's very kind of you, Chloe," I said, my voice dripping with mock appreciation. "But I'm actually quite comfortable where I am. And I wouldn't want to embarrass you with my simple clothes. After all, your parents are from Aspen."
"Oh, Eleanor, don't be silly!" Chloe laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "We don't care about that! We're family! Please, Nick is just sick over how things handled yesterday. He wants to apologize. And we want you to meet little Liam!"
Hearing my grandson's name sent a sharp, painful pang through my chest. But I knew that if I went back now on their terms, it would only be a temporary surrender. They didn't want me; they wanted the legal pressure to stop. They had obviously realized that the eviction notice and the default warning were somehow tied to me, or at least that the timing was too coincidental to ignore.
"I will meet my grandson when the time is right, Chloe," I said coldly. "But right now, I think Nicholas has some paperwork to attend to. Has he checked his business email today?"
"What? What paperwork?" Chloe’s voice lost its sweet veneer, instantly turning sharp. "Eleanor, what did you do? Did you report us to some tenant association? Nick said the landlord is trying to evict us because of some stupid escrow mistake. Is this your doing? Are you trying to ruin our lives because your feelings were hurt?"
"I didn't ruin your lives, Chloe," I said softly. "You and Nicholas did that when you decided that people are only worth the balance in their bank accounts. Goodbye, Chloe."
I hung up and immediately called Arthur.
"Arthur, they are trying to play nice now. Have they made any moves on the accounts?"
"Yes, Eleanor," Arthur said, his voice grimly triumphant. "Just forty minutes ago, Nicholas authorized a wire transfer of eighty thousand dollars from the AeroFlow operational reserve account to Stonegate Properties to cover the escrow deficit. He bypassed his CFO's approval by using his emergency founder's key."
"He embezzled from his own company to save his house," I said, a cold satisfaction settling over me. "And that operational reserve account... it was funded by my venture capital loan, correct?"
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"Precisely," Arthur said. "Under Section 8.2 of the Apex Horizon loan agreement, any unauthorized diversion of loan capital for non-business, personal expenditures constitutes immediate, non-curable fraud. The ten-day cure period is now null and void. We can legally call the entire four-million-dollar loan immediately, and we have grounds to freeze AeroFlow's operational assets to prevent further dissipation."
"Do it, Arthur," I said, looking out at the beautiful Seattle skyline. "Freeze the accounts. Let's see how long his high-society friends stay when the champagne stops flowing."
