Chapter 4 - THE SHOWDOWN AT THE REGENCYThe dimly lit lounge of the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue was filled with low-toned chatter, clinking martini glasses, and wealthy executives conducting discreet mid-afternoon deals.
Brandon sat in a corner velvet booth, wearing a wrinkled suit jacket, his collar open, downing a double scotch at a dangerous pace. His hands were shaking so badly that amber liquid spilled onto the glass tabletop whenever he set the glass down.
When I walked through the heavy mahogany doors, he practically leaped out of his seat.
"Olivia!" he breathed, rushing forward to grab my hands.
I stepped back gracefully, out of his reach, placing my leather handbag on the table as I sat down across from him.
"Sit down, Brandon," I said coldly. "And keep your hands to yourself."
Brandon swallowed hard, sinking back into the velvet booth. He looked ghastly—dark circles under his eyes, skin pale, his usual charming posture completely shattered.
"Olivia, look," he began, leaning across the table, whispering frantically. "The break-in this morning... it was a complete misunderstanding. I was stressed about my mother, I was panicked about the divorce... I wasn't thinking clearly. If you sign an affidavit stating you invited me over to inspect the door lock, the district attorney will drop the felony burglary charges."
I stared at him, marveling at his endless capacity for audacity.
"And what about Vanguard Horizon, Brandon?" I asked softly.
The color instantly drained from his face until he looked like a corpse.
"W-what?" he stuttered.
"Vanguard Horizon LLC," I repeated, resting my hands flat on the table. "The shell corporation in Grand Cayman where you’ve been routing forty-two million dollars of Sterling Point Capital’s client funds using my stolen administrative key."
Brandon’s mouth opened, but no sound came out for five full seconds.
"You... you know?" he whispered, his eyes darting frantically toward the hotel entrance as if expecting police to swarm the room.
"I’ve known since nine o'clock this morning," I said evenly. "Grace Parker audited the clearing house logs. Julian Vance and the FBI have already verified the IP routing from our penthouse Wi-Fi."
Brandon slumped back against the booth, his eyes wild with desperate, feral fear.
"Olivia... please," he begged, reaching across the table, his voice cracking into a pathetic whimper. "You have to help me! I didn't mean for it to get this big! I took a ten-million-dollar short position on a tech stock two years ago... the market moved against me! I was going to lose Hawthorne Global! I just needed a temporary loan from Sterling Point until the market corrected!"
"A forty-two-million-dollar temporary loan?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Using my digital signature so I would take the fall if the auditors caught it?"
"I was going to put it back!" he lied, tears welling in his eyes. "I swear to God, Olivia, I was going to pay it back before the compliance review! But the Cayman bank froze the account yesterday because they flagged a missing authorization code! I just need you to log into your master security app right now and approve the transfer back to Sterling Point! If the money is back in the escrow account by Monday morning, nobody has to know!"
He pulled a high-end smartphone out of his pocket and slid it across the table toward me. On the screen was the Vanguard Horizon wire authorization page, waiting for a single biometric tap from my master token.
He genuinely believed I was still his naive, forgiving wife. He thought that if he showed enough panic, I would save him just to avoid a public scandal.
I picked up the smartphone, looked at the wire screen, and then looked straight into Brandon's trembling eyes.
"You really don't get it, do you, Brandon?" I said gently.
"Get what?" he whimpered.
"I didn't come here to save you," I said, placing the phone face down on the table. "I came here to give the FBI clear line-of-sight for your second federal arrest."
Before Brandon could react, four plainclothes FBI agents stepped out from surrounding tables, pulling federal badges from their jackets.
"Brandon Hawthorne," Agent Miller announced loudly, grabbing Brandon’s arms and hoisting him out of the booth. "You are under arrest for federal wire fraud, bank fraud, grand larceny, and computer intrusion."
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"NO! OLIVIA! NO!" Brandon shrieked, kicking against the carpet as the agents forced his hands behind his back and snapped steel handcuffs around his wrists. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! WE WERE MARRIED! OLIVIA!"
The entire hotel lounge fell silent as New York high society watched Brandon Hawthorne dragged out onto Park Avenue in chains.
