Chapter 6
While Julian was frantically trying to control the narrative among his business associates, the fallout from the birthday party was spreading through high society like wildfire. Videos captured by caterers and departing guests had begun circulating on encrypted local messaging groups, stripping away the polished veneer of the golden couple. In a sleek glass-walled conference room downtown, Julian paced back and forth across the imported wool rug, his phone pressed tightly to his ear as another corporate partner backed out of a major real estate venture. His mother, Evelyn, sat in a leather armchair nearby, dabbing at her dry eyes with a silk handkerchief, more concerned about the family's social standing than her son’s violent behavior. “You shouldn't have struck her in public, Julian,” Evelyn muttered, her voice trembling with irritation rather than remorse. “You always lacked the restraint your father had. Now look at the mess we are in; Arthur Vance is freezing our commercial accounts, and the district attorney's office has made inquiries.” Julian stopped pacing, his face dark with suppressed rage as he glared at his mother. “She pushed me to it! She thinks she can just walk away after everything I’ve built for her?” He threw his phone against the far wall, watching the glass screen shatter into a thousand glittering pieces against the concrete baseboard. The realization that Elena was actually gone—not hiding upstairs in the guest room, but actively dismantling his empire with her father’s backing—finally began to sink into his distorted worldview. He grabbed his car keys and stormed out of the office, ignoring his secretary’s desperate calls about an unscheduled audit being conducted by federal agents in the downstairs accounting department. Julian was driven entirely by blind panic and a desperate need to reclaim control over the woman he viewed as his property, completely unaware that every move he made was now being meticulously documented by Richard Vance’s private investigators.
