Chapter 9 - Stripped to the Bone
By midnight, the Holloway estate was cleared, leaving behind only the cold residue of a destroyed empire.
Julian, Margaret, and I sat in the lower drawing room over hot coffee. On the table lay the emerald-cut Dunmore Sapphire, glowing under the table lamp like a living, breathing creature.
"Ethan's bail hearing is tomorrow morning," Julian informed me, reviewing notes on his tablet. "Given the flight risk and the foreign accounts, the judge will set it at no less than two million dollars cash. His father-in-law won't put it up—I already had a word with Mr. Cole. The moment he discovered Ethan was dragging his family name into a federal wire fraud indictment, he disowned Vanessa and froze her trust."
"And the firm?" I asked quietly.
"Mercer Logistics will be forced into involuntary Chapter 11 by Monday afternoon," Julian said without pity. "His creditors are already filing liens. By the time our civil suit is completed, Ethan won't have enough money to buy a subway token."
I looked down at the simple platinum wedding band on my left ring finger. It had cost nine hundred dollars five years ago, bought with my own savings when Ethan was still sleeping on an air mattress in a studio apartment, telling me that one day he would build an empire for us.
He hadn't built an empire. He had built a gilded cage, and then tried to sell the bars.
Slowly, deliberately, I slid the ring off my finger and set it on the glass table.
"Keep it," Margaret said softly. "Melt it down."
"No," I replied, shaking my head. "Give it to the auction block along with Ethan’s assets. Let it pay off the debts he owed to the honest workers at his warehouse."
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Arthur Bellamy gently picked up the Dunmore Sapphire and presented the restored clasp to me. "The setting is reinforced, Clara. Eleanor would want you to wear it. Not as an ornament of wealth, but as armor."
I bowed my head as Arthur carefully fastened the cool platinum chain around my neck. The weight of the sapphire rested perfectly against my collarbone, covering the small white bandage. For the first time in five years, I didn't feel small. I didn't feel invisible.
