Chapter 7 - The Downfall of Ryan Montgomery
By Sunday evening, the Montgomery mansion in Beverly Hills felt like a mausoleum.
Cardboard boxes littered the Italian marble foyer. The paintings had been stripped from the walls by auction evaluators, leaving pale, dusty rectangles against the Venetian plaster. Two moving trucks were already parked on the driveway, their hazard lights flashing through the driving rain.
Ryan Montgomery sat on the bottom step of the grand curved staircase, an empty bottle of bourbon resting between his feet. He hadn't shaved in three days. His designer shirt was stained with alcohol and sweat.
The door to the master bedroom flew open upstairs.
Vanessa Carter descended the stairs, carrying two oversized Louis Vuitton luggage bags. She was dressed in a sleek leather trench coat, her diamond sunglasses perched atop her head despite the gloom.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ryan asked, his voice slurred, heavy with bitter malice.
Vanessa didn't even look at him. She tossed her luggage toward the front door. “To the Four Seasons. I called an Uber.”
Ryan let out a harsh, barking laugh. “The Four Seasons? On whose card, Vanessa? The accounts are seized. My American Express was declined at the gas station this afternoon. You don’t have a dime.”
“*You* don’t have a dime, Ryan,” Vanessa corrected sharply, turning to face him with cold, calculating eyes. “I, however, took the precaution of liquidating the diamond bracelets you bought me last month. And I transferred fifty thousand dollars from your corporate entertainment account before the forensic auditors locked down the portal.”
Ryan surged to his feet, swaying slightly as rage cleared the bourbon fog from his brain. “You stole from me? After everything I sacrificed for you? I threw my wife out of this house for you!”
“You threw Mariana out because you’re a weak, pathetic narcissist who needed someone to stroke his ego!” Vanessa snapped, stepping into his face without an ounce of fear. “You told me you were going to be worth half a billion dollars! You told me Montgomery Logistics was merging with Vance Global! You’re not a titan, Ryan. You’re a bankrupt fraud who’s about to lose his mother’s house!”
“What about our child?” Ryan screamed, grabbing her by the lapels of her leather coat. “You’re carrying my heir! You’re carrying a Montgomery!”
Vanessa threw her head back and laughed—a cruel, mocking sound that ripped through the empty mansion like gunfire.
“Your child?” Vanessa sneered, shoving his hands off her coat. “Ryan, you idiot. You absolute, gullible fool.”
Ryan froze. “What did you say?”
Vanessa reached into her purse, pulled out a laminated medical document, and slapped it against his chest.
“I’m not carrying your child. I was never pregnant,” she stated with chilling detachment. “The morning I showed up at this house with that fake ultrasound, Arthur Sterling and I had already finalized our plans. Arthur was the one routing your corporate funds into Aegis Holdings' shell accounts for an insider payout. We needed you distracted, drunk, and legally compromised so you wouldn’t notice the balance sheet discrepancies.”
She leaned in, her lips inches from his ear. “Arthur is waiting for me in Miami. We have three million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds, and you have thirty-six million in personal liabilities.”
“You... you whore!” Ryan roared, raising a hand.
Before the blow could land, the heavy front door swung open with a resounding bang.
Four armed federal marshals stepped into the foyer, led by a stern-faced woman in an FBI windbreaker.
“Ryan Montgomery?” the lead agent demanded, displaying a badge. “I am Special Agent Vance from the Financial Crimes Division. We have an arrest warrant for Ryan Montgomery and Arthur Sterling for corporate fraud, bank fraud, and wire fraud exceeding twenty-five million dollars.”
Vanessa gasped, stepping backward toward the kitchen door, but two more agents entered through the rear entrance, blocking her path.
“Vanessa Carter?” Agent Vance asked coldly. “You’re coming with us as an unindicted co-conspirator. Don't touch that purse.”
Ryan fell back against the stairs, his legs turning to jelly. “Wait... no, this is a mistake! My mother... where is my mother?”
Agent Vance pulled a pair of steel handcuffs from her belt. “Rebecca Montgomery was arrested two hours ago at LAX trying to board a private charter to the Bahamas on a forged passport. She’s currently being processed at the metropolitan detention center.”
The cold steel clicked shut around Ryan’s wrists.
As the agents hauled him toward the open door into the pouring rain, Ryan’s eyes caught a glimpse of a black town car idling at the end of the driveway beneath the palm trees.
The rear window lowered slowly.
Mariana sat inside the climate-controlled luxury of the vehicle, draped in an ivory cashmere coat. Beside her sat Julian Thorne.
Ryan stopped struggling against the marshals' grip. “Mariana!” he screamed across the manicured lawn, the rain drenching his face, mixing with tears of absolute ruin. “Mariana! Help me! Call your grandfather! You’re my wife! You swore before God to stand by me in sickness and in health!”
Mariana rolled down the window just two inches.
Her voice cut through the stormy night, crystal clear, entirely tranquil.
“I stood by you for eleven years of sickness, Ryan,” Mariana said. “And on the day I was finally cured, you threw me out.”
She placed her hand over her stomach, pressing against the fabric of her coat.
“You wanted an heir, Ryan,” she whispered, loud enough for his ears alone to catch the truth. “You blamed me for being empty. But the miracle you prayed for was already inside me when you handed me those divorce papers.”
Ryan’s eyes widened until the whites showed completely. His breath stopped. The entire universe seemed to collapse inward.
“What?” Ryan croaked, his voice cracking into a ragged sob. “You’re... you’re pregnant? That’s... that’s my child! Mariana! That’s my baby!”
“It was your child,” Mariana replied coldly. “Until you signed the divorce decree and certified that you had no claims, no rights, and no interest in anything I carried out of that house.”
She rolled the window back up, sealing out the sight of his ruin.
“Drive,” she told the chauffeur.
May you like
As the car glided away into the night, Ryan fell to his knees in the mud, screaming her name into the uncaring rain as the federal agents dragged him toward the waiting police cruisers.
***
