The Billionaire in the Scrapyard

Chapter 7: Public Disgrace

"Get your hands off me!"

Julian shrieked like a trapped rat as two state troopers pinned his arms behind his back. The cold steel handcuffs clicked around his wrists with a sharp, heavy snap.

"You cannot arrest me! Do you know who my father is? Father, tell them! Tell these animals who we are!"

Richard did not step forward. He did not say a word. He stood frozen in the aisle, his face pale, his knuckles white as he watched every camera lens in the room swing from the stage to his son's shaking hands. The reporters were shouting questions at once, the flashes from their cameras lighting up the chaos like lightning.

"Mr. Sterling, is the Apex algorithm stolen property?"

"Did Sterling Global forge the municipal development permits?"

"Is this the real Vance heir?"

Richard turned his back on the cameras, pushing his way through the crowd of horrified investors. Before he reached the heavy exit doors, his eyes locked onto mine on the stage. There was no fatherly look in those eyes. There was only raw, murderous hatred.

Evelyn walked up the stage stairs, her dark heels clicking sharply against the polished wood. She did not smile. She kept the blue folder pressed firmly against her side.

"The state prosecutor just signed the temporary asset hold on Julian's personal accounts, Leo," she said, her voice dropping so only I could hear. "We need to get to the courthouse before Richard’s legal team files an emergency appeal."

"I am ready," I said.

My voice sounded steady, but as I stepped down from the wooden podium, my left knee buckled violently.

I caught myself against the steel frame of the speaker rack. My entire body broke out into a cold, greasy sweat. My vision swam with dark spots, and a sharp, nauseating pain shot straight up through my ribs where Richard’s guards had kicked me the night before.

"Leo?" Evelyn’s hand caught my arm, holding me upright. "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," I wheezed, trying to pull away from her grip. "I am... I am fine."

"You are burning up," she said, her fingers touching my forehead. "Your shirt is soaked through with blood on the left side."

I looked down at the navy wool jacket. A dark, wet patch had spread from under my arm down to my belt. The cut on my ribs from the broken glass in the garage had torn wide open during the fight behind the curtain. The adrenaline was finally leaving my blood, and the raw, crushing exhaustion of three days without sleep hit me all at once.

"We have to go to the courthouse," I whispered, my teeth chattering as the room began to spin. "If we do not file by noon, Richard wins."

"You cannot even walk down the stairs," Evelyn said, her voice tight with real fear. "Lean on my shoulder. Right now."

We moved slowly out the back service door into the cold alleyway. The freezing rain hit my face, making the gash on my cheek sting like fire. Marcus was waiting by the open door of the sedan, the engine idling in the gray fog.

When Marcus saw me stumbling against Evelyn, his scarred face twisted with worry. He rushed forward, his heavy arms catching me before my boots gave out completely in the mud.

"Kid," Marcus rasped, lifting me into the back seat. "Look at me. Stay awake, Leo."

"I did it, Marcus," I mumbled, leaning my head against the cold glass window as the car accelerated down the alley. "The whole city saw the screen. They saw my father's name."

"I saw it on the radio broadcast," Marcus said softly, his rough hand pressing a clean rag against my bleeding side. "Arthur would be proud, boy. He would be damn proud."

A single, hot tear cut through the dried blood and road grit on my cheek. The memory of sitting at that banquet table, begging Richard to look at me, begging for just one crumb of love from a man who had murdered my real family, tore through my chest like a dull saw. 

I had won the stage. I had humiliated Julian in front of the world. But sitting in the back of that old car, bleeding through my father's jacket, I had never felt smaller or more alone.

"They are going to kill me, Marcus," I choked out, the words breaking in my throat as the tears kept coming. "Richard is not going to stop with court papers. He is going to burn everything Arthur left behind."

"Not while I am breathing," Marcus said, his voice thick with a fierce, protective weight. "You rest your eyes, kid. I will get us to the safe house."

The sedan sped through the rain, crossing the bridge away from the downtown skyscrapers.

Ten minutes later, Evelyn’s phone rang on the dashboard speaker.

She tapped the screen. "Cross."

"Miss Cross, it is Miller," the voice on the line was trembling, breathless with pure panic. It was the Banking Commission Chairman. "Where is the Vance boy?"

"He is in protective custody under state commission rules, Chairman," Evelyn said calmly.

"Cancel the transport!" Miller shouted through the speaker. "Richard Sterling just called an emergency private meeting with the district magistrate. He claimed the boy is a dangerous domestic terrorist who hijacked the municipal broadcast system! The city police just issued a shoot-on-sight warrant for Leo Vance!"

Evelyn slammed her foot on the brakes, the tires skidding across the wet asphalt.

"A shoot-on-sight warrant?" Evelyn gasped. "On what legal grounds?"

"Richard paid the magistrate two million in cash ten minutes ago!" Miller yelled before the line suddenly went dead with a loud pop of static.

Marcus looked out the rear window.

Through the heavy rain behind us, four black police cruisers with flashing red lights and dark tinted windows were speeding over the crest of the bridge, cutting off our only path to the city court.