Chapter 3 - The Unholy AllianceI motioned for Wesley to lower his gun, though every instinct in my body screamed at me to be cautious. Coraline walked into the living room with the poised, aristocratic grace she had been taught since childhood, but the usual cold detachment in her blue eyes was gone. In its place was a sharp, calculating fire.
"You have five seconds to explain why you shouldn't be thrown out of that window," I said coldly.
Coraline didn't flinch. She placed the leather briefcase on the marble island right next to Julian's laptop. "Because if you throw me out the window, you'll never find out what happened to Mave's brother three years ago—or why my father agreed to let your mother use our company as a money-laundering front."
Mave came out of the guest room, having heard the voices. She froze when she saw Coraline standing in the center of the room.
"It's alright, Mave," I said, keeping my body positioned between her and Coraline. "Speak, Coraline. Quickly."
"My father is a gambler, Garrett," Coraline began, her voice steady but laced with deep disgust. "Three years ago, he lost two hundred million dollars to a cartel-backed hedge fund. He was going to prison, and our family name was going to be dragged through the mud. Your mother found out. Victoria doesn't just buy assets; she buys human souls."
Coraline unzipped the briefcase and pulled out a stack of financial documents, tossing them onto the counter.
"She offered my father a deal," Coraline continued. "She would bail out Ashford Maritime using off-shore Hail family funds. In exchange, my father had to agree to a forced merger between our families when you turned thirty. But Victoria had one strict condition before she signed the check: Garrett had to be completely unattached, bitter, and focused solely on work. She told my father that as long as Mave Whitlock was in your life, you were 'uncontrollable.'"
Mave stepped forward, her voice tight with anger. "So you helped her? You helped Victoria terrorize me and my family?"
Coraline turned to face Mave. For a moment, her composed facade faltered, showing a flash of genuine shame.
"I didn't know about the physical threats until after you left, Mave," Coraline said softly. "I knew Victoria was pressuring you, but I didn't know she sent enforcement thugs to your apartment. When I found out, I tried to pull back, but your mother threatened my father again. She told us if I didn't play the dutiful fiancee, she would call in the two-hundred-million-dollar loan immediately, bankrupting my family overnight."
"Why come here now?" I asked, leaning over the counter to look at the documents. "You just lost a wedding that would have secured your family's safety forever."
"That wedding was a trap," Coraline snapped, her eyes flashing. "This morning, before I walked toward the cathedral, I found a codicil in the final merger agreement that your mother's legal team tried to sneak past my father's lawyers. If we married, Victoria would gain fifty-one percent of Ashford Maritime's voting shares immediately, taking complete control of our family's legacy and leaving my father with nothing. She was going to destroy us anyway, Garrett!"
I picked up the documents and flipped through them. The paper trail was meticulous, but Victoria had left her fingerprints all over the offshore transfers.
"She used the Ashford ports to bypass federal trade regulations," I muttered, my mind racing through the legal implications. "This isn't just corporate fraud. It's wire fraud, extortion, and tax evasion on an international scale."
"Yes," Coraline said. "And I have the master keys to our family's private servers right here. I'm willing to give them to you. I'm willing to testify against your mother and my own father if it means getting out from under Victoria's thumb."
"What's your price?" I asked, knowing nothing in our world came without a cost.
"Protection," Coraline replied immediately. "Full legal immunity through your federal connections, a guarantee that Ashford Maritime won't be liquidated when the scandal hits, and ten percent of the spinoff company once you take control of Hail Enterprises."
I looked at Mave. Her eyes were fixed on the documents, her hands trembling slightly, but her expression had changed from fear to resolve.
"What do you think, Mave?" I asked gently, deferring to her for the first time in three years.
Mave looked up, staring directly at Coraline. "If we do this, my brother and father have to be protected first. Victoria forced my brother out of his university and revoked my father's medical license in New York using her political connections. I want those restored."
"Done," Coraline said without hesitation. "I can have my family's legal team file the paperwork to lift those administrative holds by tomorrow morning."
"Then we have an alliance," I said, extending my hand to Coraline. She shook it firmly.
"We need to move fast," Julian interrupted, looking up from his screen with a pale face. "Garrett, your mother just called an emergency board meeting of Hail Enterprises for 9:00 AM tomorrow. She's invoking Clause 14."
My blood ran cold. Clause 14 was a legacy provision in the Hail corporate charter created by my grandfather. It allowed the founder's widow to freeze the CEO's executive power if the CEO demonstrated 'moral turpitude or severe personal instability' that threatened the company's valuation.
"She's trying to declare me mentally unfit because I left the altar," I said, a dark smile spreading across my face. "She thinks I'm going to hide in this penthouse and defend myself through lawyers."
May you like
"What are you going to do?" Mave asked, worry etching her forehead.
"I'm going to that board meeting," I said, looking at the two women standing in my living room. "And I'm bringing my daughter, my ex-wife, and my former fiancee with me."
Related Stories
