10. Tristan #2
He hit the double doors with his shoulder.
They yielded, spilling him out into the executive corridor.
Tristan kept the crumpled pages of the divorce petition crushed against his side.
Behind him, the boardroom erupted into chaos.
Winston’s booming voice chased him through the opening, the deep baritone filling the hallway behind him.
“Don’t you dare turn your back on me! You walk away from this closing, and your career at this firm is dead! Get back inside right now!”
Tristan did not break his stride. The terrified stares of the floor staff meant nothing.
Let Winston scream until his voice gave out.
Let the Lancaster deal die on the table.
Marching blindly around the corner, he collided hard with a junior associate stepping out of a side office.
A massive stack of files slipped from the stunned man’s hands.
The glossy cardstock hit the stone, scattering loudly across the floor.
Dozens of executives halted. The young man dropped to his knees, frantically scrambling to gather the scattered projections.
“Oh God, Mr. Hawthorne, my apologies! Let me get these out of your way.”
Winston’s footsteps echoed down the corridor, closing the distance. Tristan stared down at the associate. The panic on the young man’s face did not matter.
“Leave them on the floor. Just move.”
He stepped right over the mess of ruined cardstock, shoving past the stunned employee to reach the entrance of his private office.
He threw his weight against the wood, stepping inside and slamming the door shut.
He grabbed the deadbolt and twisted it. The lock engaged with a final click.
The thick walls muffled Winston’s furious demands from the hallway.
Tristan stood alone in the center of the room.
Silence filled the isolated space. The multi-line phone on his desk lit up with incoming calls from the executive floor, the silent red lights flashing in a steady rhythm.
He walked toward the desk and tossed the crumpled legal pages down.
He braced against the desk, leaning forward to stare at the black print.
The printed words mocked him. This was not a negotiation tactic.
Waiving thirty million dollars in guaranteed prenup cash was a permanent flight from a monster.
He let her walk out into the freezing night with nothing but a battered canvas bag.
She walked away from generational wealth to escape him.
He reached out and pushed the cover sheet aside. He flipped past the boilerplate text, his thumb dragging across the thick parchment. He located page eleven.
The financial stipulations stared up at him from the page. She demanded zero dollars in child support. She relinquished all claims to the Hawthorne estate. She severed every single financial tie to his name.
He lowered his hand. He pressed his index finger against the bottom line, tracing her signature. She did not even use his surname. She signed the document as Marianne Callahan.
The memory of his mother’s modulated, cruel voice surfaced in the quiet.
“Let’s drop this exhausting charade, Marianne. You played your hand beautifully. You are a pregnant social climber who successfully trapped my son, and now your financial future is permanently secured.”
He dragged his finger over the loops of the cursive. He remembered sitting at the head of the dining table, staying comfortably silent while his family tore her apart. He remembered the exact tone of his wife’s response.
“I am not a social climber, Eleanor. I haven’t taken a single dime from this estate.”
He stared at the signed waiver, facing the reality of his arrogance. His voice rasped into the empty space.
“You weren’t bluffing. You really left all of it behind.”
Tristan pushed off the edge of the desk. He forced himself to move, turning his back on the divorce petition. The white parchment stood out against the wood. Winston’s muffled shouts still echoed through the locked door, demanding to be let in.
Let him pound on the door.
Tristan stepped toward the center of the office. The waiting game was dead. Sitting in this tower and assuming she would crawl back the moment her funds ran out had been an arrogant mistake.
“I’m not waiting anymore,” he muttered to the empty room.
He pulled his smartphone from his jacket pocket. Unlocking the phone in the dim office, he swiped past the endless missed calls from the boardroom to access his secure contacts. He hit the dial icon and raised the device to his ear.
He gripped the phone tightly.
She cannot just disappear.
The line rang twice before clicking open.
“Graves. Clear your current operation,” Tristan said, his voice dropping into a low rasp.
“Mr. Hawthorne? What’s the situation?” the security head answered over a thin layer of static. “Someone on the executive floor just triggered a lockdown alarm.”
“Ignore the executive floor,” Tristan said. He paced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, tracking the city skyline beyond the glass. “Victor, we are done waiting. I need your best field team deployed immediately. I want boots on the ground.”
He paced a tight line across the carpet. He pivoted at the glass and marched back toward the desk. Tearing the city apart to find her was the only priority that existed. The board could hemorrhage capital. The Lancaster deal could rot in the hallway.
“Copy that, Mr. Hawthorne,” Graves said. The sound of a keyboard clattering filtered through the speaker. “We have the address of the law firm that filed these papers, but we don’t have a specific destination yet. What is our exact operational scope?”
Tristan stopped pacing. He stood at the edge of the desk, looking down at the inked signature on page eleven. Marianne Callahan.
“You start at that law office, pull every transit camera in a ten-mile radius, and trace her exit route,” Tristan commanded.
“Understood. Do we authorize a retrieval team if we acquire a location?”
“Find her, but do not make contact and do not spook her,” Tristan said, pressing the phone tighter against his ear. “I want a confirmed visual location by midnight, and I am writing you a blank check to get it done.”
“We are on it, sir. I’ll ping you the second we have a trajectory.”
Tristan ended the call. The call screen vanished, leaving the office in quiet shadows.
The muffled pounding on the corridor door finally ceased, replaced by the low hum of the ceiling vents.
He tossed the phone onto the desk. It slid across the wood and bumped against the edge of the scattered documents.
He stood alone inside the locked office, staring down at her signature.