Chapter 4 - The Business Partner's Betrayal
The heavy metal door of the interview room banged open, rattling off its hinges.
Officer Miller stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with panic, looking between Marcus’s flushed, enraged face and my calm, unmoving posture.
"Detective Vance... sir," the rookie stammered. "There's... there's someone in the lobby asking for Ethan. He says he's his business partner. He brought a team of corporate lawyers."
Marcus took a ragged, shuddering breath, violently shoving his fallen chair upright. He straightened his tailored suit jacket, wiping a thin layer of sweat from his forehead, struggling to force his breathing back under control.
"Send him in," Marcus snarled, glaring at me with pure venom. "Let’s see how your little partner likes finding out what kind of criminal sandbox you’ve been playing in."
A moment later, the doorway darkened, and Julian Cross stepped into the room.
Julian looked like a brochure for a high-end investment bank. He wore an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit, an expensive silk tie, and carried a leather briefcase that looked like it had never touched a dusty desk in its life. Behind him stood two senior corporate attorneys from the firm’s retained legal counsel, carrying thick leather folios.
"Ethan! Thank God!" Julian cried out, rushing into the room with theatrical, sickening concern. He grabbed me by the shoulders, his eyes wide with simulated horror. "When Marcus called me saying you were brought in for questioning regarding the Henderson homicide, I dropped everything! Are you alright? Did they hurt you?"
I stared at Julian, feeling a cold wave of utter disgust wash over me.
In my first life, I had leaned into that embrace, weeping with gratitude that my best friend and business partner had rushed to my side with high-powered lawyers. I hadn't known then that Julian had paid Marcus Vance fifty thousand dollars in untraceable consulting fees through an offshore shell company just two days before the murder.
"Save the theater, Julian," I said, my voice ice-cold. I shrugged off his hands, stepping backward with deliberate precision.
Julian blinked, his theatrical expression faltering for a microsecond before he recovered his smooth, patrician charm. He turned to Detective Vance, spreading his hands in an expansive, magnanimous gesture.
"Detective Vance, there has clearly been a catastrophic administrative error here," Julian said, his voice rich and persuasive. "Ethan Vance is the lead architectural genius behind our firm’s multi-million-dollar historical restoration portfolio. He was with me until midnight on Monday reviewing zoning blueprints. He has nothing to do with Arthur Henderson’s tragic death."
"Is that right, Mr. Cross?" Marcus asked, his voice still vibrating with suppressed rage from our private confrontation. "Because your partner’s fingerprints were lifted off the murder weapon found at the crime site."
Julian sighed deeply, shaking his head with sorrowful disappointment. "Fingerprints? That's impossible. But even if some stray tool from our job site was mishandled, Ethan is a respected partner in our firm. However... if the police department insists on pursuing this line of inquiry, perhaps we should discuss the firm's immediate restructuring."
There it was. The real play.
The murder frame wasn't just about putting me in prison; it was about triggering the moral-turpitude clause in our partnership agreement, which allowed Julian to buy out my fifty-percent equity stake for one dollar in the event of a felony indictment.
"Restructuring, Julian?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, walking over to the aluminum table and picking up my tablet. "You mean the clause where you acquire my shares for a dollar and sell the Henderson estate land development rights to the Meridian Group for four million?"
Julian went completely rigid. The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse under the fluorescent lights.
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"What... what did you say?" Julian whispered, his voice cracking.
"I said," I replied, stepping right up to him, letting him see the cold, absolute triumph burning in my eyes, "your hostile takeover just hit a federal roadblock."
