Chapter 6 - A Forty-Page Contract Dropped in Red Wine
The Grand Ballroom went utterly, completely still.
Even the veteran servers standing along the perimeter froze, their eyes widening in shock at the blatant cruelty displayed in the center of the room.
Arthur Sinclair chuckled softly, lighting a cigar. “Margot, darling, don't play with the help.”
“Why not, Father?” Margot laughed, glancing around the table for approval. “She wants six thousand dollars. I’m offering her an honest day’s wage for thirty seconds of reading. What’s the matter, Dela? Can’t read without pictures?”
Julian Sinclair raised his glass. “I’ll add another thousand if she cries.”
Dela looked down at the navy-blue leather binder resting on the table between Margot and Augustine Vandermir.
Six thousand dollars in fresh hundred-dollar bills lay scattered across the pristine parchment pages.
Beside the binder, Gus sat motionless.
His eyes were fixed entirely on Dela. Not a muscle in his jaw twitched, but his hand resting on the marble table had closed into a fist so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords beneath his skin.
Dela set the silver champagne bottle down on the marble with a soft, deliberate clink.
She stepped forward.
She did not touch the money.
With two fingers, she slid the six thousand dollars of cash off the contract, letting the bills scatter across the white tablecloth like discarded leaves.
Then, she pulled the heavy navy binder toward herself.
“Margot,” Arthur Sinclair said, his brow furrowing slightly as he noticed the unnatural stillness in Dela’s posture. “That document is proprietary—”
“Let her read it, Arthur,” Gus Vandermir’s voice cut across the table like a whip.
Arthur stopped.
Dela flipped past page one.
Past page five.
Past page twelve.
Her eyes moved across the dense, single-spaced legal text with blinding speed.
Every clause.
Every defined term.
Every statutory reference.
She reached page twenty-four.
Margot leaned back, a smug, self-satisfied grin curling her lips as she waited for the stammering, humiliated breakdown of an uneducated server.
Dela took a slow, deep breath.
When she spoke, her voice was no longer the soft, deferential whisper of a service worker.
It was clear, resonant, and razor-sharp—a voice trained in mock trial halls and honed by top-tier legal scholarship.
“‘Section 9.4: Indemnification and Environmental Escrow,’” Dela read aloud, her diction flawless, her cadence measured and commanding.
The junior associates at the end of the table sat up straight.
“‘In the event of any historical or unmanifested cargo non-compliance occurring prior to the effective merger date across Municipal Docks 38 through 44, the Vandermir Maritime Consortium shall assume sole, non-transferable civil and criminal liability for all state and federal remediation fines...’”
Dela paused.
She turned the page with a crisp, sharp snap of parchment.
“‘...while Sinclair Logistics LLC shall retain eighty-five percent of all liquid asset disbursements from the Northern Terminal Escrow Account, free and clear of judicial attachment.’”
Dela closed the binder with a resounding thud that echoed through the forty-second floor.
She looked up.
May you like
Her gaze locked onto Arthur Sinclair’s widening eyes.
“It’s a remarkably lazy indemnity shift, Mr. Sinclair,” Dela said, her voice carrying effortlessly to every corner of the room. “Though I suppose your counsel assumed nobody at this table would actually read the cross-reference to Chapter 415 of the Illinois Revised Maritime Code.”
