Chapter 3 - THE MIDNIGHT COMMAND
The drive back to my real home—a quiet, five-acre gated estate fifteen miles outside the city that Isabella had never visited because I had told her it was a "maintenance client's guest house" I was taking care of—was silent.
Mackenzie sat in the passenger seat of the Silverado, wrapped in my wool coat and her own winter jacket, her hands holding a mug of hot cocoa I had bought at a twenty-four-hour drive-thru.
The color was returning to her cheeks, but her eyes were fixed on the dark road ahead.
"Dad?" she whispered softly as we pulled through the hidden electronic gate of our private property.
"Yeah, baby?"
"Are you okay?"
I looked at her, my heart aching with a profound, terrifying tenderness. "I should be asking you that, Kenzie."
She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry I lost my temper at dinner. I just... I couldn't sit there anymore and listen to them treat you like you were nothing. You built everything, Dad. You work so hard. It broke my heart."
I pulled the truck to a stop in front of our brick house, turned off the engine, and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
"You never have to apologize for defending me, Mackenzie," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "But from this moment on, you will never, ever have to defend me to those people again. Do you hear me?"
She nodded slowly. "Are you going to sign those papers?"
"I'm going to give her everything she asked for," I said softly. "And a whole lot more."
I got Mackenzie settled into her bedroom upstairs, making sure her heating blanket was turned on, bringing her a fresh glass of water, and waiting until her breathing slowed into a peaceful, deep sleep.
At 11:30 p.m., I walked down to the garage, stripped off my wet work coveralls, and took a long, burning hot shower.
I scrubbed the grease from my hands. I washed the smell of copper and muddy water from my hair.
When I stepped out, I didn't put on my faded jeans or my flannel work shirts.
I walked into my private dressing room at the back of the master suite—a room that had remained locked behind a biometric thumbprint scanner for eight years.
I pulled on a charcoal-gray, hand-tailored Italian wool suit. I tied a silk tie against a crisp white shirt. I strapped a heavy, platinum Patek Philippe watch onto my left wrist—a watch I had bought the day Apex hit its first ten million dollars in annual revenue, a watch that had sat in a velvet box in the dark while I wore a twenty-dollar digital watch to the Vance family dinners.
I picked up my encrypted corporate phone, my silver laptop, and my truck keys.
At 12:15 a.m. on Christmas morning, I pulled out of the garage.
I didn't drive the Silverado.
I drove my black Mercedes-Maybach S680—a car that had been parked in the private, climate-controlled garage of Apex Headquarters downtown for six years, used only when I flew out to negotiate multi-million-dollar state contracts in neighboring capitals.
The heavy twelve-cylinder engine purred like a sleeping panther as I cut through the snowy streets toward the downtown financial district.
The Apex Property Solutions corporate headquarters occupied the top three floors of the thirty-story Obsidian Tower on 5th Avenue.
I parked in the private underground executive bay, took the private elevator directly to the 30th floor, and stepped out onto the polished marble reception floor.
The floor was dark and silent. A single blue accent light illuminated the massive brushed-steel logo mounted on the wall behind the desk: APEX PROPERTY SOLUTIONS.
I walked down the hallway to the executive suite, opened the doors to the master office, and sat down behind the massive, slab-oak desk overlooking the snow-covered skyline of the city.
I opened my laptop, logged into the primary administrative server, and picked up my corporate phone.
I dialed a speed-dial number I hadn't used at midnight in three years.
It rang twice.
"Nick?" Arthur Pendelton’s sleepy, confused voice came through the speaker. "Nick, is everything okay? Is there another main break at Meridian?"
"Arthur," I said.
My voice was flat, smooth, and laced with an icy authority that made Arthur go instantly silent on the other end of the line. He knew that tone. It was the tone I used when we were deployed in Mosul, the tone that meant operational parameters had shifted into lethal territory.
"Nick... what's happened?" Arthur asked, his voice suddenly sharp and alert.
"It's over, Arthur," I said quietly, leaning back in my leather chair, looking out at the snow falling over the city lights. "The play is finished. The curtain is coming down."
There was a heavy pause on the line. Arthur had been my confidant for a decade. He was the only person in the world who knew the full truth about why I had played the broke handyman for eight years.
"What did they do, Nick?" Arthur asked softly.
"They threw Mackenzie out onto the porch in twelve-below weather on Christmas Eve," I said calmly. "And Isabella handed me divorce papers in front of the whole family while her father called me a loser."
A loud, furious curse exploded from Arthur’s mouth. "Those ungrateful, parasitic bastards! Nick, tell me what you need. I'll have security clear out their desks by six in the morning!"
"No," I said, a slow, cold smile spreading across my face in the dark office. "We aren't clearing desks at six in the morning, Arthur. We are going to do this with absolute, flawless corporate precision."
I pulled up the primary human resources directory on my laptop screen.
"I want you to call our chief legal counsel, Richard Vance—no relation to those snakes—and tell him to meet us in the board room at seven o'clock tomorrow morning," I ordered. "I want full operational and financial audits prepared for all forty-seven corporate positions currently held by members of the Vance family."
"All forty-seven?" Arthur breathed.
"Every single one," I said flatly. "Frank Vance. Marcus Vance. Julian Vance. Their cousins, their uncles, their wives, and their in-laws. I want every company credit card statement, every expense report, every vehicle lease agreement, and every attendance record compiled into individual termination files."
I opened a master spreadsheet on my screen, watching forty-seven names glow in cold, green text.
"They think Frank earned his status," I said softly. "They think they belong in the upper class. They think I am a beggar living off their scraps."
I took a deep breath, my eyes locking onto Frank Vance’s name at the top of the spreadsheet.
"On December 28th, Arthur—three days from now—Apex is holding its annual year-end executive shareholder and managerial strategy breakfast at the Grand Regency Hotel."
"They're all scheduled to be there," Arthur confirmed, his voice trembling with dark anticipation. "Frank booked the VIP head table three months ago so he could show off his 'executive power' to the regional vendors."
"Good," I whispered. "Don't cancel the breakfast. Let them put on their finest suits. Let them drive their company-leased Audis and BMWs. Let them sit at the head table and toast to their bright futures."
May you like
I slammed my hand down on the oak desk.
"Because at nine o'clock sharp," I said, "the owner of Apex Property Solutions is going to walk into that ballroom and deliver forty-seven termination letters in person."
