Chapter 6 - The Web of Collusion
By Wednesday afternoon, the walls were closing in on Sebastian Carter.
He was sitting in the cramped, beige living room of Gloria’s two-bedroom condominium in Skokie—a property that had been leased for her by Carter Holdings three years ago. The apartment was littered with half-empty takeout containers, discarded legal documents, and the pungent smell of Gloria’s chain-smoking.
Across the room, Gloria paced like a caged hyena, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lip, her cell phone pressed to her ear.
“What do you mean the retainer check bounced?!” Gloria screamed into the receiver. “Listen to me, you ambulance-chasing leech! My son is married to Victoria Carter! We are entitled to fifty percent of everything she owns! If you don't file the emergency spousal maintenance petition today, I will have your license revoked!”
The line went dead. Gloria threw the phone onto the faded sofa with a curse.
Sebastian didn't move. He sat hunched over the laminate coffee table, his head buried in his hands. He was wearing clothes he had purchased from a local department store using forty dollars of spare cash he found in an old gym bag.
His phone buzzed. It was an alert from *Crain’s Chicago Business*:
*“CARTER CAPITAL COMPLETES HISTORIC STERLING LOGISTICS ACQUISITION; VICTORIA CARTER ANNOUNCES RECORD THIRD-QUARTER PROFITS.”*
Directly below that headline was a smaller, devastating bulletin:
*“FORMER CARTER CAPITAL AIDE CHARGED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR WIRE FRAUD PROBE; ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR ALYSSA MONROE.”*
“She’s going to prison,” Sebastian choked out, his voice hollow. “Mom... Alyssa is going to federal prison. The FBI is involved.”
“Stop crying, you spineless idiot!” Gloria snapped, rounding on him. “Alyssa was always disposable! She got greedy and sloppy with those wire transfers. That has nothing to do with you!”
“Nothing to do with me?!” Sebastian roared, standing up so violently that the coffee table rattled. “My name was on the Florida wedding certificate, Gloria! Bigamy is a felony in Illinois and Florida! Eleanor Vance filed an emergency annulment petition on grounds of fraud and bigamy! If the judge signs it, our entire eight-year marriage is legally treated as if it never existed! I won’t get fifty percent! I won’t get five percent! I won’t get a single penny!”
Gloria marched up to him, slapping him hard across the face.
The sharp crack silenced the room.
“Pull yourself together!” Gloria hissed, her eyes gleaming with manic venom. “You are a Carter! Well... you carry the name because she gave it to you, but you have the pedigree of my family! We are not going back to poverty, Sebastian! Do you hear me? We are not going back to counting pennies in some rundown duplex!”
“We have no money, Mom!” Sebastian cried, tears of rage and humiliation welling in his eyes. “My accounts are frozen! The car is gone! My clothes are sitting in garbage bags in your hallway! We can't even afford to pay the rent on this condo next month!”
Gloria smiled, a slow, sinister curving of her lips that made Sebastian’s stomach turn.
“We don't need a divorce court, Sebastian,” Gloria whispered, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a silver USB drive. “We have leverage.”
Sebastian stared at the drive. “What is that?”
“For three years, every time I visited your office at Carter Capital, I didn't just drink her expensive tea,” Gloria said, her voice dripping with triumphant spite. “I took photographs of her private correspondence. Her medical files. Her fertility clinic records.”
Sebastian stepped back, horrified. “Gloria... no. You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, yes I would,” Gloria hissed. “Victoria has spent ten years building a reputation as an untouchable corporate goddess. But how will the conservative institutional investors of the Sterling Logistics syndicate feel when they find out that Chicago’s darling CEO spent five years battling severe clinical depression after three failed IVF cycles? How will the public view her when they read her private psychological evaluations? When they see the emails where she broke down and begged her therapist to help her feel like a real woman?”
“That’s private medical data!” Sebastian whispered. “It’s illegal to leak that!”
“Not if an anonymous whistleblower sends it to every major tabloid from New York to Los Angeles,” Gloria said, her eyes flashing with cold cruelty. “Victoria will do anything to protect her corporate brand. When she sees these files uploaded to an encrypted server ready for distribution, she will write us a check for ten million dollars just to make us disappear.”
Sebastian looked at the silver drive. He felt a sickening twist in his core—a faint, dying ember of the conscience he had spent years ignoring. He remembered Victoria holding his hand in the recovery room after her second surgery, her eyes filled with quiet, devastating grief, whispering that she was sorry she couldn't give him the family he wanted.
And now, his mother wanted to butcher her soul on the public altar for cash.
Before Sebastian could speak, the front door of the condominium was kicked open with an explosive crash.
Three armed officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department flooded the entryway, their weapons drawn, followed immediately by two federal agents in dark suits with gold badges pinned to their lapels.
“Federal agents! Hands where we can see them! Step away from the table!”
Gloria shrieked, dropping the USB drive onto the carpet.
Sebastian froze, his hands instinctively flying into the air.
Special Agent Miller stepped into the living room, holding a brightly colored document. “Gloria Carter? Sebastian Carter?”
“What is the meaning of this?!” Gloria wailed, her voice cracking into shrill hysterics. “This is private property! You have no right to barge in here!”
“Gloria Carter, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit federal wire fraud, grand larceny, and interstate corporate extortion,” Agent Miller announced in a flat, clinical voice.
He glanced down at the carpet, spotted the silver USB drive, pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, and carefully scooped it into an evidence bag.
“And Sebastian Carter,” Agent Miller continued, turning his gaze toward the trembling groom. “You are being detained as a material witness and co-conspirator in connection with the fraudulent diversion of four point two million dollars from Carter Capital accounts.”
As the steel handcuffs clicked around Gloria’s wrists, she began thrashing, cursing Victoria with every breath, spitting venom until an officer forced her down toward the door.
Sebastian looked at the cold steel circling his own wrists. He didn't scream. He didn't fight.
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He looked out the window of the cheap Skokie apartment and saw a sleek black Town Car parked across the street. In the backseat, behind the dark tinted glass, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman’s silhouette—calm, composed, and already driving away into a future where he did not exist.
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