Chapter 5 - The Fall of Blackridge
By midnight, Blackwood Manor had become a fortress under siege—not from outside attackers, but from the legal and corporate blitzkrieg Nathaniel unleashed from his study.
Dr. Alan, Nathaniel’s private physician, had cleaned and stitched the bullet wound on his ribs. It had been a through-and-through graze, messy and painful, but not fatal. Now, Nathaniel sat behind his massive mahogany desk, his shirt unbuttoned, a thick white bandage taped across his torso, his fingers typing furiously on a secure laptop.
I stood by the window, wearing one of his heavy flannel shirts over my leggings, holding a cup of untouched black coffee.
“The warrant was executed an hour ago,” Nathaniel said, his voice cold and precise as he reviewed the incoming encrypted emails. “The Wyoming State Division of Criminal Investigation, accompanied by federal marshals, raided Julian Cross’s estate and Daniel Reeves’s townhouse.”
I turned from the glass. “Did they find the ledgers?”
“They found everything,” Nathaniel said, looking up at me. “Daniel was so terrified after tonight’s scene that he tried to burn the backup drives in his fireplace. The agents pulled the half-melted hard drives directly from the ash. Our forensics team had already mirrored the cloud servers three days ago. There is nowhere for them to run.”
Before I could respond, the secure intercom on his desk chimed.
“Boss,” Marcus’s voice crackled through. “We have Reeves outside the main gate.”
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice. “Alone?”
“Alone. Driving a rental sedan. He’s unarmed, hysterical, screaming that he needs to see Emma. The gate guards have him at gunpoint.”
Nathaniel closed his laptop with a sharp click. He stood up slowly, the bandage pulling against his ribs, but his movements were fluid and lethal.
“Bring him to the courtyard,” Nathaniel said.
“Nathaniel,” I said, stepping forward, my heart pounding. “Don't kill him. Don't throw your life away for someone like him.”
Nathaniel paused, looking down at me. The hardness in his face softened by a fraction. He reached out, his warm, scarred fingers brushing a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I don't need to kill him, Emma,” he murmured. “A man like Daniel Reeves destroys himself the moment you take away his audience. But you deserve to look him in the eye when the floor drops out from under him.”
Ten minutes later, we stood on the covered stone portico overlooking the snow-covered courtyard.
Floodlights illuminated the gravel driveway. Two armed guards shoved Daniel Reeves to his knees in the slush.
He looked entirely unraveled. His expensive tuxedo was gone, replaced by a rumpled winter jacket. His hair was wild, his eyes manic and bloodshot. When he saw me walking out beside Nathaniel—wearing Nathaniel’s clothes, standing under Nathaniel’s roof—a strangled, pathetic noise escaped his throat.
“Emma!” Daniel cried, his voice cracking against the freezing wind. “Emma, please! Tell them to call off the marshals! Tell them you made a mistake!”
I stopped at the edge of the stone steps, looking down at him from five feet above.
“A mistake, Daniel?” I said, my voice echoing across the courtyard. “Was it a mistake when you routed six million dollars through my employee ID? Was it a mistake when you bought Madeline a diamond bracelet while planning to send me to federal prison?”
“Julian made me do it!” Daniel sobbed, his hands clawing at the frozen gravel. “He said if I didn't set you up, he would ruin my career! He said Madeline would never marry me if I was just a middle manager! I did it for us, Emma! I was going to use the money to get us out—I was going to come back for you!”
The sheer, sickening absurdity of his lie made me want to laugh.
“You proposed to Madeline forty-eight hours ago,” I said, my voice dropping into a tone of quiet, absolute disgust. “You stood before three hundred people and laughed while they mocked me. You didn't care if I spent the rest of my life in a cage, as long as you got to sit at the high table.”
“Emma, please!” Daniel lunged forward, but the butt of Marcus’s rifle caught him across the shoulder, knocking him flat onto his stomach in the snow.
Nathaniel stepped past me, descending the stone stairs slowly. His boots crunched on the gravel.
He stopped directly above Daniel, looking down at the man who had tried to destroy me.
“Julian Cross was arrested forty minutes ago at the private airport in Casper,” Nathaniel said, his voice dropping like an anvil onto the frozen air. “Madeline’s family has disowned him to protect their remaining trusts. Her engagement to you has been publicly dissolved by a press release from her father’s legal counsel.”
Daniel gasped, his face pressed into the freezing slush. “No... no, she wouldn't...”
“You have no job, Reeves,” Nathaniel continued ruthlessly. “You have no fiancé. Your assets have been frozen by federal order, and by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, every news outlet in the Mountain West will carry your mugshot.”
Nathaniel knelt down, grabbing Daniel by the scruff of his jacket and hauling his head up so their eyes met.
“You thought Emma was weak because she was kind,” Nathaniel whispered, his voice vibrating with pure venom. “You thought because she had no family name and no millions in the bank, she was disposable. But you forgot one thing, Reeves.”
Daniel’s teeth chattered violently. *“W-what?”*
“Everything in this valley has a price,” Nathaniel said, shoving Daniel back down into the dirt. “And you can't afford the woman who belongs to me.”
Nathaniel stood up and turned to Marcus.
“Call the county sheriff,” Nathaniel commanded. “Tell them the fugitive they’re looking for is lying in my driveway. Get this trash off my mountain.”
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Daniel screamed and cursed as Marcus dragged him away across the gravel, his cries fading into the howling winter wind until there was nothing left but the silence of the falling snow.
***
