Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Viper Pit
The sidewalk outside Morel Tower on 53rd Street was relentless.
Camille Laurent’s four-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahniks were not designed for forty-five minutes of standing on Manhattan concrete. Her ankles ached, her silk scarf was crooked, and the humid, exhaust-choked wind from Lexington Avenue was whipping her blowout into a tangled mess.
Worse, three separate freelance photographers—the bottom-feeders who tracked the movements of corporate raiders and high-society scandals—were hovering ten feet away, their long lenses clicking with rhythmic, merciless efficiency.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. It had been buzzing non-stop for three hours.
*Alert: Page Six.*
**"LAKE VALMONT DUNK TANK: Shipping Heiress Soaked By Socialite In Forty-Million-Dollar Blunder."**
*Alert: Bloomberg.*
**"Vance Holdings Crashes 48% Amidst Morel Acquisition Rumors."**
*Message from: Mother.*
*Camille, what did you do? The Country Club just canceled your bridal shower. Your father’s line of credit at JP Morgan is flagged. Call me NOW.*
"Idiots," Camille muttered under her breath, her fingernails digging into the palm of her Birkin bag until the stitching strained. "They're all idiots. Julian’s father will fix this. He has friends on the board. He has the governor."
The revolving glass doors of Morel Tower spun.
Julian stepped out.
He didn't have his briefcase. His tie was undone, the top button of his shirt missing, as if he had torn it open to breathe. He walked with the heavy, uncoordinated gait of a man who had just survived a high-speed vehicle rollover. Behind him, Alistair leaned heavily on the arm of a security guard, who deposited the old man gently on the sidewalk before turning back inside.
"Julian!" Camille lunged forward, her voice breaking through the noise of the traffic. "Julian, thank God! Did you see the guards? They wouldn't let me up! They treated me like a common—"
Julian didn't look at her. He kept walking toward the curb, his eyes fixed on the dirty gray water pooling in the gutter.
"Julian! Talk to me!" She grabbed his arm.
Julian stopped. He slowly turned his head. His eyes were completely bloodshot, the fine capillaries in his sclera burst from the rage and terror of the last two hours.
"Don't touch me," he said.
The words weren't loud, but they were so utterly devoid of warmth that Camille pulled her hand back as if she had touched an electric fence.
"Julian... it's me. It's Camille. We can fix this. My father has contacts in private equity. We can find another partner—someone better than that... that arrogant French peasant with an inheritance! She thinks she can humiliate us? We'll hire an agency! We'll spin the story! We'll tell them she provoked me, that she was trespassing—"
"She owns the house, Camille," Julian said.
The world seemed to pause around them. A yellow cab honked aggressively as it swerved around a delivery van, but Camille heard nothing except the dry rasp of Julian’s voice.
"What do you mean she owns the house?"
"She bought the mortgage paper from Barclays at dawn," Julian said, his lips curling into a sick, twisted smile that looked almost insane. "She bought the debt on the Greenwich house, the debt on the apartment on 72nd Street, and the notes on the stables. Everything my grandfather built. Everything my father spent fifty years protecting. It’s gone. It’s all gone."
"No..." Camille took a step back, her hand flying to her throat. "No, that's impossible. What about our wedding? What about the venue in Newport?"
"There is no wedding," Julian said. He reached out, grabbed Camille’s wrist with a grip that left white finger marks on her skin, and twisted her hand so the light caught the empty third finger. "There is no ring. There is no house. There is no Vance Holdings."
"Julian, you're hurting me!"
"You pushed her," Julian whispered, his face inches from hers, his breath smelling of bile and black coffee. "You couldn't just drink your champagne. You couldn't just let the hired help clear the glasses. You had to prove you were better than someone. You had to push a girl into the water to show everyone how powerful you were."
He released her wrist with a violent shove that sent her staggering back against the stone pillar of the building.
"She wasn't a waitress, Camille. She was the executioner. And you handed her the axe."
Julian turned, hailed a passing yellow cab—an ordinary, dented Ford Crown Victoria—and climbed into the back seat without looking back once.
Camille stood alone on the sidewalk.
The shutter of a camera clicked. Then another.
"Miss Laurent!" one of the photographers yelled from behind his lens. "Care to comment on the liquidation? Is it true the wedding is off? Can you confirm your father’s firm is being audited?"
Camille turned, her face contorted with a hideous, feral rage, and lunged at the lens with her designer handbag.
"Get away from me!" she screamed, the sound echoing off the polished stone of Park Avenue. "Get away from me, you vultures!"
May you like
The camera flashed, catching her mid-snarl, her hair wild, her mascara smudged, looking precisely like what she was: an exile from the only world she had ever known.
***
