Chapter 5 - The Deal in the Dark
By the time the sun went down, Preston was sitting in the dark in an apartment that wasn't really his anymore, holding a glass of scotch he hadn't touched.
He'd spent eight hours calling everyone he knew. Contacts, favors, guys who owed him. Nobody picked up. In his world, a man under federal investigation was something you didn't want on your call log.
Someone knocked.
He opened the door and found Sinclair standing in the hall in a pressed suit, looking like he'd slept nine hours.
"Come to enjoy the view?" Preston said.
"I came with paperwork." Sinclair walked past him without being asked and set a black folder on the coffee table.
"There's nothing left to take."
"There's one thing." Sinclair unbuttoned his jacket and sat. "I'm here to keep you out of a federal prison."
Preston went still.
"Claire isn't cruel," Sinclair said. "She's thorough. The embezzlement exposure is real — that's a decade, realistically. But if you sign these, surrendering your remaining equity to her as part of the settlement, she'll amend the federal complaint. Reclassify the transfers as a marital dispute. The criminal piece goes away."
"She wants the company."
"She has the company, Preston. Your board voted an hour ago. They saw our evidence." Sinclair let that sit. "You're out as CEO, effective tonight. Sign, walk away clean, and don't spend your forties in a cell. That's the whole offer."
Preston's knees gave and he dropped onto the couch. He stared at the pen in Sinclair's hand.
His phone lit up on the table.
*Meridian Fertility Institute. Subject: URGENT — RUSH DNA RESULTS ATTACHED.*
He grabbed it. Scrolled past the medical language, hunting for the line that mattered.
*Probability of Paternity: 0.00%*
He read the zeros three times. All of it — the affair, the lies, the condo, the ten years he set on fire — for another man's kid.
The phone slipped out of his hand and cracked a second time on the floor.
"I take it the news wasn't good," Sinclair said, and held out the pen again. "Sign, Preston. It's finished."
Preston signed. His equity. The company his father started. Whatever was left of his name. Sinclair collected the pages, nodded once, and let himself out.
An hour later a key turned in the lock. Bianca came in dragging a suitcase, eyes swollen.
"I called you," she said from the doorway.
"I got the test."
She looked at the floor. "Preston. I didn't know. I swear I didn't know for sure. It was my ex — right before you and I got serious. Please. You're the only one who can take care of us."
He stood up slow. The rage had already burned down to nothing. Just ash.
He walked over until he was a foot from her face.
"You've got thirty seconds to pick up that bag and get out of my sight," he said, very quietly. "If you're still standing here when I hit thirty, I will put you over that balcony railing myself."
"You can't — I have nowhere to go, your mother froze my cards —"
"Twenty-five."
May you like
She saw his eyes and understood he meant it. She grabbed the suitcase and ran. The door slammed.
And then Preston was alone. All the way alone.
