Chapter 7 - The Departure of Marcus Thorne
While Chloe and Walter were sharing coffee in the corner booth, life was treating Marcus Thorne with significantly less warmth three miles away on the interstate.
Marcus sat in his idling BMW sedan parked on the shoulder of Route 42, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were stark white. His cell phone was buzzing continuously on the passenger seat—a relentless cascade of text messages and emergency alerts from the Apex Commercial Lending executive committee.
He finally reached over, swiped the screen, and brought the phone to his ear.
"Thorne!" barked the voice of Arthur Sterling, the managing partner of Apex, shouting so loudly Marcus had to pull the phone an inch from his ear. "What in God's name happened at the Maple Street account?! The board just received an unceremonious buyout notice from Sterling & Vance, and our entire portfolio allocation for the Midwest district has been frozen!"
Marcus swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. "Sir, I... I don't know! A woman walked in—she dropped a titanium card—she paid the entire six hundred and forty thousand dollars in cash—"
"Cash?!" Arthur roared. "You let a distressed asset slip through our fingers because an unverified buyer flashed a high-net-worth corporate card?! Do you have any idea who backs Sterling & Vance's primary escrow accounts?!"
"No, sir..." Marcus squeaked.
"The Bennett-Vance Sovereign Trust!" Arthur bellowed. "One of the most powerful institutional funds on Wall Street! And you just alienated their primary acquisitions director by acting like a petty loan shark on a street corner!"
"Sir, please—"
"You're done, Thorne," Arthur interrupted, his voice dropping into a lethal, executive register. "Pack your desk, clear your accounts, and don't bother showing up at the office on Monday. Your career in commercial lending is officially over."
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
The line went dead.
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Marcus stared at the black screen of his phone, the reality of his total, absolute ruin finally crashing down around his shoulders. He had thought power came from an expensive suit, a pinstripe tie, and the authority to crush people who couldn't fight back. He was learning, too late, that an empire built on arrogance and predatory greed is nothing more than a house of cards waiting for the wind to blow.
He dropped his head against the steering wheel, the rain beginning to fall once more, drumming a hollow, pathetic rhythm against the roof of his car.
