10. Serving the Sentence #2
I had fed the only woman I ever loved to a room full of wolves.
I had sat at a dinner table and drunk scotch while my mother gutted her in front of fifty guests.
I had let her walk out into the freezing winter night with nothing but a battered suitcase just to escape the bite.
The ambient hum of the room faded into nothing.
My fingers went numb. The legal pages slipped free from my grip, landing flat on top of the unsigned Sterling merger contract. The cheap, stapled packet obscured the multi-billion-dollar joint venture underneath.
The corporate empire my father built looked like a pile of meaningless garbage. The Sterling buyout sat entirely overshadowed by the ruin of my personal life.
A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. I planted both palms flat against the table. The stone bit into my hands. I pushed away from the table and forced myself to stand. The chair scraped harshly against the floorboards.
The sudden noise broke the tense quiet of the signing room. Across the table, the Sterling executives jolted in their seats. The lead partner dropped his pen. It bounced off the edge of the table and hit the floor.
Another executive snatched the handle of his briefcase in a panic, eyeing the door as if expecting a physical threat. They had spent months bleeding out under my corporate strategy, and now they watched my composure disintegrate in real time.
Arthur slammed his fist onto the table again, his expression twisting into absolute fury.
“Cassian, sit back down this instant!” Arthur shouted. “You are not walking out on a multi-billion-dollar closing because some process server handed you a piece of paper!”
His booming voice rattled the boardroom. Usually, that tone demanded absolute silence. Today, it just sounded hollow. The endless cycle of acquisitions and proxy votes meant nothing. The billions sitting in the Kensington accounts could not erase the blue ink on the divorce petition.
I looked at the man who taught me to view the world as a ledger, feeling nothing but disgust.
Vanessa scrambled out of her seat the moment I stepped away from the table, moving directly into my path to block the exit. The scent of vanilla flooded the narrow space between us as she held her ground. Her eyes darted from the scattered papers to my face, frantic to maintain control of the room.
“If you walk out of this room without signing, the Addison joint venture is dead, Cassian,” she threatened. “My family will pull our capital right now.”
I looked down at her. She actually believed the money still mattered. She believed the threat of losing her family’s wealth would force me back into the chair. I had spent my life allowing these people to dictate my priorities because I assumed they controlled the only currency that held value.
They had no power here anymore. The Kensington name was a prison, and I was done serving the sentence.
I turned back to the table. I grabbed the stapled packet off the top of the Sterling contract and gripped it tight in my fist. I left the gold pen resting exactly where it fell. I looked Vanessa dead in the eye, dropping any pretense of our professional alliance.
“Pull the capital,” I told her. “The deal is dead. Do whatever you want, because I am leaving.”
I turned my back on the table, pushed through the glass doors, and walked out into the bright glare of the executive corridor.
Dozens of analysts and associates milled through the bullpen, carrying binders and coffee cups.
I strode directly toward my private office at the end of the hall, my eyes locked on the door.
A junior associate stepped blindly from behind a cubicle partition, cutting off my route. I collided with his shoulder, the impact jarring my arm, but I barely felt the hit.
The young man went pale and lost his grip on a cardboard carrier. Three large coffees hit the floor and burst open, splashing hot liquid across the walkway.
“Mr. Kensington, I’m so sorry!” the associate stammered, dropping to his knees to desperately wipe at the puddle. “Are you alright? Let me just clean this out of your way.”
I stopped and looked down at him. The terror in his eyes was familiar. It was the exact same look my father inspired in his subordinates. It was the look I had spent years cultivating in the boardroom. Right now, it just made me sick to my stomach.
“Leave it on the floor,” I told him. “Just get out of my way.”
The associate scrambled backward, abandoning the ruined coffees. I stepped around the puddle and kept walking.
Behind me, the glass doors of the signing room burst open with a violent crash. Arthur stormed out into the corridor in a blind fury. The dozens of executives on the floor froze in their tracks, staring in open shock as my father kept yelling.
“Cassian, stop walking away from me!” Arthur shouted, his voice echoing down the length of the hall. “You tank this deal and you are finished in this company! Get back in this room right now!”