Chapter 8 - The Confiscation
The federal investigator stepped past Maya, holding out an official warrant toward Richard. The crisp rustle of paper was the only sound in the expansive living room as Richard slowly reached out, his fingers trembling, and accepted the document. He didn't even bother reading the detailed legal jargon; the bold federal seal at the top was more than enough to confirm his complete and total defeat.
"Richard Vance, you are being detained pending formal charges of corporate fraud, asset falsification, and systemic embezzlement," the lead investigator stated calmly, his voice lacking any emotion. He signaled to the officers behind him, who stepped forward and placed cold steel handcuffs around Richard's wrists with practiced efficiency.
Evelyn remained huddled against the wall near the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the scene unfold with hollow, unblinking eyes. Her breath came in shallow, ragged gasps. As the officers turned Richard around to lead him toward the elevator, he caught her eye for a fraction of a second. There was no apology in his gaze, only a bitter, shared resignation to the fate they had engineered together over the course of fifteen stolen years.
Maya watched the officers escort Richard away without a single flicker of triumph on her face. Her expression remained an unreadable mask of cold, calculated poise. She swiped casually on the screen of her tablet, locking the penthouse's smart system down entirely so that local access was permanently disabled from within.
"What about her?" one of the secondary agents asked, gesturing toward Evelyn, who was still cowering on the floor in her ruined red tunic.
Maya glanced down at Evelyn, her dark eyes narrowing slightly. "Leave her," Maya replied smoothly, her voice cutting cleanly through the quiet room. "She's already lost everything that mattered to her. Let her experience what my father felt when they locked him out in the cold with nothing but the clothes on his back."
The agents nodded, turning and filing out of the penthouse, leaving the heavy front door wide open to the hallway. Maya turned on her heel, her black heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor as she walked toward the private elevator. She stepped inside, pressed the button for the ground floor, and watched through the closing glass doors as Evelyn sat utterly alone in the cavernous, stripped-down living room.
Evelyn waited until the elevator hummed downward and absolute silence returned to the penthouse. Slowly, with shaking legs, she pushed herself up from the floor. She staggered toward the kitchen counter, her eyes landing on an abandoned smartphone left behind by one of the federal agents on the marble island.
Without thinking, Evelyn snatched the phone up, her thumb swiping desperately across the screen to dial an emergency number. But as the dialer opened, a strange automated notification popped up across the display, blocking all outgoing calls and locking the device completely.
Below the notification was a live video feed streaming directly from the lobby security cameras downstairs.
May you like
Evelyn stared at the tiny screen in horror. On the video feed, standing in the center of the pristine lobby, was a man she thought she would never see again in this lifetime—a man whose supposed disappearance twenty years ago was the very foundation upon which her entire luxurious life had been built.
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