Chapter 8 - Desperation Breeds Poison
Two weeks later, the noose tightened completely around Dylan Carter.
He had been released on a fifty-thousand-dollar bail paid by his weeping, humiliated mother, only to find himself completely blacklisted from every architectural firm and social club in North America. His father had publicly disowned him in the New York Times, declaring that the Carter family would not spend another dime defending his fraud.
Brooke Webster was in an even worse state. Unable to make bail, she was currently sitting in a holding cell on Rikers Island, waiting for her formal arraignment on grand larceny and wire fraud charges. In an act of total desperation, her court-appointed attorney had reached out to the District Attorney’s office offering full testimony against Dylan in exchange for a plea deal.
The rats were eating each other alive.
I spent the evening in my newly purchased brownstone in the West Village. I had sold the penthouse I once shared with Dylan, cleansing every trace of his existence from my life. The new home was warm, filled with soft light, natural oak, and a nursery that was already being painted in gentle hues of cream and sage green.
Julian was in the kitchen, his suit jacket draped over the back of an armchair, cooking dinner.
It was a sight I still found surreal: one of the most feared financiers on Wall Street, standing barefoot over a gas range, stirring a risotto with the meticulous patience of a master chef.
“You shouldn't be standing on your feet for that long,” Julian chided gently without turning around. “Dr. Price said you need at least eight hours of horizontal rest every day.”
“I’ve been resting all afternoon, Julian,” I laughed, leaning against the marble kitchen island with a glass of sparkling water with lime. “The baby and I are perfectly happy watching you cook.”
Julian turned, a soft, boyish smile breaking through his normally stoic face. He walked over, picked up a small tasting spoon, and held it to my lips. “Taste this. Does it need more thyme?”
I tasted the risotto. “It’s perfection. Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“Oxford,” he said, leaning his hip against the island beside me. “When you’re twenty-one and competing with aristocratic trust-fund kids who think eating cold takeout makes them edgy, learning how to cook properly is the best way to keep your sanity.”
A sudden, sharp crashing sound shattered the peace.
Glass exploded in the living room at the front of the brownstone.
The security alarms roared to life—a deafening, piercing siren that bounced off the high ceilings.
Julian moved instantly. In a fraction of a second, his body was between me and the hallway, his posture coiled like a panther. He reached into his waistband, drawing the compact Glock 19 he had carried ever since Dylan had cornered me at the clinic.
“Stay behind me,” Julian commanded, his voice dropping into absolute tactical ice. “Miller is outside, but whoever this is came through the terrace doors.”
Heavy, erratic footsteps pounded across the shattered glass in the foyer.
A man stumbled into the light of the kitchen archway.
It was Dylan.
He was soaked from the pouring rain outside, his clothes torn, his eyes completely unhinged. In his right hand, he held a rusted tire iron, its metal tip dripping with rainwater.
“You thought you could lock me out!” Dylan screamed, his voice cracking into high, hysterical shrieks over the blaring siren. “You took my company! You took my money! You turned Brooke against me—she’s singing to the feds, Ava! She’s telling them about the shell accounts in Switzerland!”
“Drop the weapon, Dylan,” Julian warned, his firearm raised with two rock-steady hands, the red laser sight painting a bright, unblinking dot directly over Dylan’s chest.
“Shut up, Vance!” Dylan roared, waving the tire iron erratically. “This is between me and my wife! She was supposed to be my wife! Everything she has belongs to me! I built her! I created the life she was going to have!”
He turned his crazed, bloodshot eyes onto me, his face contorting into a hideous mask of jealousy and rage.
“And you’re carrying my baby,” Dylan hissed, taking a trembling step forward. “You think you can raise my kid with this hedge-fund bastard? You think I’ll let another man raise my blood while I rot in a federal penitentiary? If I can’t have the Reynolds fortune, nobody will!”
Dylan lunged forward, raising the tire iron with both hands, aiming directly for my head.
Julian didn't hesitate.
He didn't fire the gun—knowing that the muzzle blast in an enclosed room could cause acoustic trauma to my pregnancy—instead, Julian stepped inside Dylan’s guard with blinding speed.
Julian’s left hand caught Dylan’s wrists, redirecting the tire iron harmlessly into the wooden doorframe. With his right elbow, Julian delivered a devastating, bone-crunching strike directly into Dylan’s sternum.
Dylan gasped, all the air exploding from his lungs.
Julian tripped Dylan’s back leg, slamming the former golden boy face-first into the hardwood floor with enough force to shatter his nose. In one fluid, brutal movement, Julian planted his knee into the center of Dylan’s back, twisting the tire iron out of his grip and pinning his arm behind his shoulder at an angle that made Dylan shriek in agony.
“Miller!” Julian barked.
The front door blew open. Miller and two armed security guards burst into the room, their weapons drawn.
“Take this animal,” Julian commanded, rising to his feet and holstering his weapon. “Restrain him. Do not let him up until the police arrive.”
Miller slammed his heavy tactical boot onto Dylan’s shoulder, clicking steel handcuffs around his wrists with ruthless efficiency.
Dylan sobbed into the floor, his face covered in blood and snot. “Ava... please... Ava, don't let them take me... I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”
I stepped around the island, walking until I was standing right above him.
Dylan looked up with one swollen eye, desperate for any shred of the gentle, forgiving woman who had loved him for three years.
“You’re not sorry, Dylan,” I said, my voice echoing over his pathetic whimpering. “You’re just caught. And from this day forward, my child will never know your name.”
Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the rain-slicked windows as four police cruisers screeched to a halt outside the brownstone.
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Dylan Carter was dragged out into the night, kicking, screaming, and weeping, straight into the back of a police van—never to walk freely among society again.
***
