Chapter 4 - The Confrontation
The heavy oak doors of the Vance & Associates building in Center City slammed open as I walked into the lobby.
My tuxedo jacket was gone, my tie was loosened, and my sleeves were rolled up to my elbows. I looked like a man who had walked through a hurricane, and in a way, I had.
"Mr. Vance!" Marcus, my father’s former executive assistant and now my senior administrator, jumped up from his marble desk in the corner office. "Where have you been? Miss Stanton has called four times! Her father is on line one, and the rehearsal dinner arrangements—"
"Marcus," I said, my voice dead calm, though every nerve in my body was screaming. "In my office. Now."
Marcus, a man in his late fifties with slicked-back gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses, blinked in surprise before following me inside. I closed the heavy double doors and locked them.
I threw the forged letter onto the glass coffee table between us.
Marcus looked down at the paper. His face went instantly pale, his eyes darting back and forth across the typed lines.
"Where did you get this, Evan?" he asked softly.
"My father didn't write this alone, did he?" I stepped closer to him, my voice dangerously low. "He was a corporate litigator, not a master spymaster. He didn't know how to track Rachel's medical records in Williamsport. Who did it, Marcus?"
Marcus swallowed hard, adjusting his tie. "Evan, you have to understand the pressure your father was under four years ago. The firm was on the brink of insolvency. The Stanton family offered a twenty-million-dollar capital injection, but only on the condition that the families were united by marriage. Richard did what he had to do to save the firm."
"HE THREATENED A PREGNANT WOMAN!" I roared, slamming my hand onto the desk, shattering a glass paperweight. "HE STOLE FOUR YEARS OF MY CHILDREN'S LIVES!"
Marcus flinched, backing toward the door. "Children? What... what children?"
"Triplets, Marcus!" I took a step toward him, my chest heaving. "Three four-year-old children living in a cramped two-bedroom apartment while I sit in a penthouse buying five-thousand-dollar wedding suits! Did you know about them?"
Marcus closed his eyes, leaning his back against the wood. "Your father... he handled the financial arrangements directly. He set up a quiet third-party trust through a shell company in Delaware to cover her basic living expenses. He didn't want them starving, Evan, he just... he couldn't let them ruin the merger."
"A shell company," I repeated, realization dawning on me. "That's why there were always those unverified quarterly transfers in the private audit logs. You helped him set it up."
"I was following orders!" Marcus pleaded, his hands raised. "Your father was my boss for thirty years! He promised me that once the Stanton merger was finalized and you were firmly established, he would find a way to quietly introduce the children into your life as a 'charitable cause' or a late discovery!"
"He was a monster," I whispered, the reality of my father's absolute sociopathy sinking into my bones. "And you helped him."
Before Marcus could answer, the office door handle rattled violently, followed by loud, angry voices outside.
"I don't care if he's in a private meeting!" a man's voice boomed.
The lock gave way as the door was shoved open. Arthur Stanton—Noelle’s father and the principal investor of Vance & Associates—marched into the room, flanked by Noelle, who was pale, red-eyed, and holding a handkerchief to her face.
"What is the meaning of this, Evan?!" Arthur demanded, his heavy gold watch flashing in the light as he pointed a finger at me. "Noelle came home in hysterics! She says you abandoned her in Rittenhouse Square to chase after some low-class girl and claimed you have bastard children?!"
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I looked at Arthur Stanton—a man who had viewed my life as an investment portfolio for four years. Then I looked at Noelle, who stood behind her father, looking at me not with love or concern, but with profound embarrassment and rage.
"They aren't bastards, Arthur," I said, my voice ice cold. "They are my sons and daughters. And the wedding is off."
