Chapter 9 - The Father’s Desperate Knock at the Penthouse Door
At 10:00 AM, the private security desk in the Reyes Tower lobby called the penthouse.
“Mrs. Reyes, your father is in the lobby demanding to see you,” the head of security reported. “He has two private attorneys with him and is refusing to leave.”
“Send him up to the private conference floor,” I instructed. “Daniel and I will meet him there.”
When Daniel and I stepped out of the private elevator onto the 60th-floor conference suite, Victor Montgomery looked like a ghost of the man who had held the microphone twelve hours earlier. His expensive suit was wrinkled, his hair disheveled, and his bloodshot eyes darted frantically around the marble-lined room.
“Meredith!” Victor gasped, rushing toward the glass conference table. “You have to call off the federal prosecutors! The FBI froze all my personal accounts this morning! They’re seizing the house in the Hamptons! They’re repossessing my cars!”
“Those assets were purchased with stolen funds, Victor,” I said, taking a seat at the head of the table while Daniel stood behind my chair, radiating cold menace.
“I am your father!” Victor screamed, slamming his palms onto the glass. “I gave you life! You wouldn’t exist without me! How can you stand there and watch your own family be thrown into the streets?!”
“When you shoved me into that fountain last night, you told me I was an embarrassment to your name,” I replied, my voice steady and unwavering. “You treated me like garbage my entire life because you knew I was the only person who saw through your fraudulent facade. You didn't give me a life, Victor. You used me as an unpaid employee and a scapegoat.”
Daniel leaned forward, placing a single sheet of paper in front of Victor.
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“This is an unconditional surrender of all shares in Montgomery Logistics,” Daniel stated. “Sign it, and my legal team will agree not to pursue civil asset forfeiture against your primary residence in Greenwich. Refuse, and you will spend the next twenty-five years in a federal correctional facility.”
Victor’s hands trembled as he stared at the document. With a broken, ragged sob, he picked up the pen and signed his name, officially ending his thirty-year reign as CEO.
