Page 24 of Thirty-Two Calls

"Go," she said simply, picking up her laptop. "I'll be right here writing my own story when you get back."

Lance crossed the room, pulling her into a desperate, crushing kiss, breathing her in as if storing oxygen for a deep dive. "I love you. I will fix this."

As Lance stormed out of the sunroom, yelling for Connor to prep the jet, Van remained by the doorway. The encryption specialist watched his sister calmly reopen her word processor, entirely unbothered by the chaos that had just erupted. Van’s eyes narrowed slightly in quiet, thoughtful respect. Evangeline wasn't just surviving Lance's world anymore; she had finally learned how to stand entirely above it.

Chapter Eighteen: The Shape of Consequence

The Gulfstream G650 touched down on the Teterboro tarmac with a heavy, mechanical scream, but it was nothing compared to the violent storm brewing inside its sole passenger.

Lance Rothwood stepped out into the biting, unforgiving wind of the New York autumn. He did not look like a man who had spent the last several months finding his soul on the French Riviera; he looked like the apex predator who had conquered Wall Street, returning to his concrete jungle with the singular, terrifying intent to draw blood.

By the time his armored SUV pulled up to the glass-and-steel monolith of Rothwood Industries, the entire executive floor had already been mobilized. Connor Radcliff and Matthew Jordan were waiting in his office, the heavy mahogany desk entirely blanketed in printed financial dossiers, wire-transfer logs, and digital communication intercepts.

"We found the fracture, sir," Connor said the moment the heavy oak doors clicked shut.

Lance threw his overcoat over a chair, his dark eyes burning with a cold, lethal fire. "Who?"

"It wasn't the board, and it wasn't your mother," Matthew answered, stepping up to a smart-screen. He tapped a command, and a web of interconnected social profiles and private club registries appeared. "It was the Silver Leaf Country Club. Specifically, the inner circle of the women's auxiliary board. Camille's closest confidantes."

Lance stared at the screen, a muscle ticking violently in his jaw. The pieces fell together with sickening clarity. During the divorce proceedings, fragments of the settlement, the dissolution of the trusts, the massive payouts, the stipulations regarding Evangeline—had passed through Camille’s legal team. She hadn't gone to the press directly; she had simply played the tragic victim over mimosas and tennis matches with the most vicious, well-connected gossips on the Eastern Seaboard. They had taken the fragments, spun them into a sensationalized weapon of class warfare, and handed it to the syndicates.

"They thought they were untouchable," Lance said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, absolute whisper. "They thought they could use her name for sport."

"What are your orders, Mr. Rothwood?" Connor asked quietly.

Lance leaned over the desk, his hands planted flat on the mahogany. "I want the Wellington account frozen. I want the Harrison merger stalled indefinitely pending a 'sudden internal review.' And I want the Sterling real estate portfolio shorted across every market we control. Call their husbands' creditors. Call the banks. By the time the market closes tomorrow, I want those women to understand exactly what it feels like to have their lives completely dismantled by a force they cannot control."

Connor and Matthew nodded simultaneously, recognizing the absolute, bloodless obliteration their boss had just ordered. "Consider it done, sir."

The Final Illusion

The financial bloodbath was executed with the silent, terrifying precision of a drone strike. By noon the next day, the shockwaves had hit the upper echelons of Manhattan society. Portfolios hemorrhaged. Elite credit lines were suddenly, inexplicably suspended.

At 2:00 PM, the intercom on Lance’s desk buzzed.

"Mr. Rothwood," his receptionist’s voice trembled slightly. "Camille Deacon is here. She... she is demanding an appointment. She says it's an emergency."

Lance didn't look up from the screen where he was watching the Sterling stock plummet. "Send her in."

Camille practically burst through the doors, entirely stripped of her icy, aristocratic composure. Her designer coat was unbuttoned, her pristine blonde hair slightly frayed. For the first time in the ten years Lance had known her, the Niederdorf heiress looked genuinely, desperately panicked.

"Stop it, Lance!" Camille cried, stopping in the center of the vast office. "You have to stop this immediately! The Wellingtons are facing a liquidity crisis, the Harrisons' merger is dead in the water—you are destroying my friends!"

Lance slowly leaned back in his leather chair. He looked at the woman he had once called his wife, feeling absolutely nothing but a profound, exhausting contempt.

"Your friends," Lance said, his voice a smooth, lethal calm, "decided to turn the woman I love into a tabloid spectacle. They wanted to play in the mud. I am simply ensuring they drown in it."

"They were defending me!" Camille pleaded, stepping closer to the desk, her hands gripping the edge. "I was your wife, Lance! For seven years, I was the silent wife. I stood by you. We took vows, and you broke them. You humiliated me by dragging that... that woman out of the shadows and burning our family's name for her! They were only writing the truth about what you did to our marriage!"

Lance stood up. His towering frame cast a long, dark shadow across the desk, completely enveloping her.

"Do not insult my intelligence by pretending to be a victim, Camille," Lance growled, the raw fury finally bleeding through his composure. "Our marriage was a corporate merger. We didn't share a bed, we didn't share a life, and we barely shared a conversation. I never wanted this marriage, and if I possessed a fraction of the courage I do now, I never would have married anyone but Evie."

Camille flinched, the sheer brutality of his honesty striking her like a physical blow.

"And do not dare call yourself the 'silent' wife," Lance continued, his voice rising, vibrating with the echoes of a decade of Evie's silent suffering. "If you felt so threatened, if your vows were so sacred to you, you could have walked away at any time. You had the Niederdorf fortune. You had a choice. No one forced you to stay."

He walked around the desk, closing the distance between them, forcing Camille to look directly into the absolute ruin of her own illusions.