Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Court
Greta Wallace did not look like a woman who had just spend three hours crying. Her silver dress had been replaced by a pristine cream Chanel suit, her diamond necklace replaced by a subtle, multi-strand pearl choker that practically screamed institutional wealth. Her face was pale, but her lipstick was a precise, aggressive shade of crimson, and her posture was as rigid as a marble column as she marched into my conference room.
Her father followed her, his expression a volatile mixture of aristocratic outrage and corporate panic, while Arthur Jenkins—a man whose legal fees cost more per hour than my mother used to earn in a month of midnight shifts—carried a thick blue leather folder under his arm.
"Tristan, this is an absolute, unmitigated farce," Greta began before the door had even fully closed behind her. She slammed her designer handbag onto my black mahogany table, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, unstable fire. "You left our engagement party—a event that my family spent eight months coordinating with the city's highest-tier caterers—to escort that woman back to her apartment because she doesn't know how to navigate a standard social gathering? And then you have the audacity to instruct your legal team to freeze my personal trust accounts? Do you have any idea what the New York Post is going to do with this tomorrow morning?"
I remained seated at the end of the table, my hands clasped loosely in front of me, my phone face down on the polished wood. I didn't look at her; I looked at Arthur Jenkins.
"Mr. Jenkins," I said smoothly, ignoring her completely. "You’ve been practicing law in this city for thirty-five years. You know my reputation. Why did you let your client bring you into my house at three in the morning with a document that became entirely useless twelve seconds after the fountain splash?"
Jenkins cleared his throat, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He knew that Vance Global was currently the primary holder of three separate real estate trusts that his firm defended. "Mr. Vance, my clients are simply here to clarify the status of the ten-million-dollar irrevocable trust established under the pre-marital execution rider signed at 4:00 PM yesterday afternoon. Under New York estate law, once an irrevocable trust document is executed and timestamped by the digital notary, the assets are considered transferred. A unilateral liquidation by the settlor constitutes a material breach of the covenant of good faith."
"It would," I agreed, leaning back in my chair, "if the assets were actually transferred from a Vance Global operating account."
Julian Wallace took a step forward, his fist slamming onto the table with a dull, heavy thud. "Don't play word games with us, Tristan! We saw the execution receipt! My daughter is the legal beneficiary of that ten million, and if you think you can use some low-class Queens street tactics to freeze her out because you're having an emotional tantrum over your mother’s clumsiness, you're deeply mistaken. We will file an emergency injunction in the supreme court before the bell rings at the stock exchange."
I let the silence stretch for five full seconds, letting the echo of his shout die against the soundproofed acoustic panels of the room. Then, I reached out and tapped my phone screen, turning it toward them.
"Julian," I said, my voice dropping into that quiet, freezing register that Arthur Pendelton knew signaled the end of a negotiation. "The trust wasn't funded with cash. It was funded with one hundred thousand shares of Wallace Holdings preferred stock—shares that Vance Global purchased through a secondary liquidity facility in Zurich two weeks ago when your company was struggling to clear its short-term commercial paper."
Julian’s face went entirely slack. The pinkish hue of his aristocratic rage vanished, replaced by a grey, paper-thin pallor that made him look every one of his sixty-eight years.
"What?" Greta whispered, her eyes darting between her father and me, her confidence finally showing its first hairline cracks. "Daddy, what is he talking about? The trust was ten million dollars. You told me it was secure."
"The market value of those shares was ten million dollars at 4:00 PM yesterday afternoon, Greta," I explained, leaning forward, my eyes fixed on her silver Chanel buttons. "But at 12:15 AM tonight, while you were busy telling your bridesmaids that my mother’s presence was ruining the aesthetic of your three-million-dollar party, Vance Global executed a block-short sale of four hundred thousand additional shares of Wallace Holdings through our London desk. We broke your market support level. As of right now, your family’s stock is trading on the German pre-market at forty percent below yesterday’s close. That ten-million-dollar trust isn't ten million anymore. It’s barely worth five. And by nine-thirty this morning, it will be worth exactly the paper it’s printed on."
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"You're a monster," Greta hissed, her voice shaking as she took a step toward me, her pearls rattling against her collarbone. "You're a low-life, street-bred thug in a custom suit. My family made you! We gave you the social clearance to buy into the Park Avenue cooperative! We invited you into our homes!"
"You invited my money into your homes, Greta," I corrected her, standing up slowly, towering over her until she was forced to take a step back against her father’s shoulder. "And you didn't make me. The rats behind the walls of that laundromat on Delancey Street made me. The winter nights when we didn't have enough quarters for the oil heater made me. Your family spent a hundred years learning how to spend money. My family spent thirty years learning how to survive the lack of it. Let’s see who handles the cold better."
