Chapter 7 - Emily’s True Colors Begin to Bleed
When a financial parasite realizes the host has severed the blood supply, the panic does not manifest as grief. It manifests as pure, cannibalistic rage.
Following the total collapse of Gregory Vance’s legal ambush, the reality of their situation descended upon the third-floor apartment at Wellington Court like a winter blizzard.
Because Centier Bank had frozen DLE Holdings' accounts, the eight-thousand-dollar delivery fee for Emily’s 2024 BMW convertible could not be processed. On Monday morning, the auto salon in Fishers canceled the lease agreement and assessed a two-thousand-dollar restocking penalty against Daniel’s business credit profile.
Worse still, on the first of the month, KV Residential Services ran their automated ACH debit for Emily’s eighteen-hundred-and-fifty-dollar apartment rent.
For the first time in seven months, the payment was returned: *INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.*
The property management firm waste no time. In Marion County, luxury apartment complexes do not extend grace to defaulting tenants; they issue a ten-day statutory Notice to Quit and append a two-hundred-dollar late fee to the ledger.
I didn't have to hire a private investigator to witness the unraveling. Nina had set up Google business alerts and credit-monitoring notifications on all shared commercial guarantees, and Daniel’s life was detonating with the regular cadence of a fireworks finale.
On Thursday afternoon, I received a frantic, breathless phone call from Mark Henderson, Daniel’s primary minority partner in his medical distribution company, Midwest Surgical Logistics.
“Rebecca? Thank God you picked up,” Mark said, his voice ragged with anxiety. “What in God’s name is happening with Daniel? He hasn't shown up at the warehouse in four days. We have three shipments of orthopedic titanium pins sitting on a freight dock in Louisville because our corporate logistics card was declined for a twelve-hundred-dollar shipping fee!”
I sat in my office, looking at the rain sheeting across the glass. “Mark, Daniel and I are in the middle of divorce proceedings. I am no longer underwriting his lines of credit.”
“Underwriting? Rebecca, he took sixty thousand dollars out of our commercial operational reserve two weeks ago! He told me he was placing a forward contract on specialized sterilizers. I just checked the wire logs—he routed it to some shell company called DLE Holdings!”
Mark was hyperventilating.
“Mark,” I said, keeping my voice utterly clinical. “Listen to me carefully. DLE Holdings is currently under an ex parte freeze order issued by Judge Hetherington. That money is locked. If Daniel misappropriated partnership funds, you need to retain independent commercial counsel immediately and file a cross-claim in our family court proceedings. If you do it before Friday, Mara Chen can ensure your claim is listed as a priority corporate creditor against his remaining equity.”
“He stole from us,” Mark whispered, his voice cracking. “After twelve years of partnership... he stole from his own company to pay for that woman?”
“He didn't just steal from you, Mark. He stole from his mother, he stole from me, and he stole from himself. Act quickly, or there won't be anything left to recover.”
Mark hung up, desperate and furious.
Less than forty minutes later, my personal phone rang.
The caller ID displayed Daniel’s personal mobile number. I pressed speaker.
Before I could say hello, a shrill, shrieking voice exploded through the phone. It wasn't Daniel.
It was Emily Vance.
“You vindictive, miserable bitch!” she screamed, her voice completely unhinged, vibrating with raw, uncontrolled hysteria. “You ruined everything! Do you hear me? Gregory has to appear before an ethics review board next week because of your psycho lawyer! He’s facing suspension! Our family has practiced law in this state for thirty years!”
I took a slow sip of water, leaning back in my leather executive chair. “Good afternoon, Emily. How is your new nose healing? I do hope the thirty thousand dollars of my money achieved the symmetrical perfection you were longing for.”
A choked, furious shriek came through the line, followed by the sound of glass shattering in the background.
“Daniel is a pathetic, penniless loser!” Emily shrieked, her voice echoing off the walls of what was clearly her apartment. “He lied to me! He sat in my living room for seven months telling me he was an angel investor! He told me he owned half of a two-million-dollar estate in Carmel! He told me he was buying me that convertible for my birthday!”
In the background, I could hear Daniel’s voice, muffled, cracked, pleading:
*“Emily, please! Put the phone down! I’m trying to fix it! I’m calling my cousin in Fort Wayne for a bridge loan—”*
*“Shut up, Daniel!”* Emily screamed, turning away from the receiver for a second. *“Get your pathetic boxes out of my hallway! I am not letting the marshal put an eviction notice on my door because you can’t pay eighteen hundred dollars! You don't even have enough money to buy your own lunch!”*
She came back to the phone, her breathing heavy, jagged, and wild.
“You think you won, Rebecca? You think you’re so smart? You lived with this parasite for eight years! You paid for his mother, you paid for his debts, you paid for his entire pathetic life! You’re just as stupid as I was!”
“No, Emily,” I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper that sliced right through her screaming. “There is one profound difference between you and me.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“I could afford him,” I said. “You couldn't.”
The line went dead.
I looked at Nina, who had been sitting across from my desk, holding a cup of tea.
Nina slowly shook her head, a mixture of shock and sheer awe on her face. “Remind me never, ever to cross you, Rebecca Cole.”
May you like
“I didn't do anything to them, Nina,” I replied, opening my weekly performance dashboard. “I simply stepped out of the way and let gravity do what gravity has been wanting to do for eight years.”
***
