My Domination Begins With A Divorce

46

Chapter 46: The Trash Alley Walk

Camilla Drake backed away from the four towering security guards, her alligator-skin handbag clutched tight against her chest as her high heels clicked frantically against the marble.

"Do not touch me!" Camilla shrieked, her voice climbing into an ear-splitting, hysterical register. "I am Camilla Drake! My family funds the Governor's campaign trust! If you lay a single finger on my coat, my brother Harrison will have your badges stripped and your families locked in the county jail!"

The lead security guard did not blink. With a smooth, practiced motion, he reached out, caught Camilla by the forearm, and twisted her wrist outward with enough leverage to force her fingers open.

The expensive alligator-skin bag slipped from her hand, falling squarely into the guard's leather glove.

A second guard stepped behind her, catching her other shoulder with an iron grip while the remaining two officers confiscated the designer shopping bags carried by her terrified socialite companions. The three young women shrieked in horror, dropping their iced coffees onto the rug and fleeing out through the front entrance without looking back.

"Release me, you filthy dogs!" Camilla screamed, thrashing her hips and kicking her pointed leather heels against the guard's shin guards.

The guards did not argue, nor did they slow their pace. They marched Camilla through the heavy brass service door at the rear of Maison de L’Or, pushing her down the narrow concrete service corridor toward the loading docks.

With a concussive metallic bang, the heavy iron fire exit slammed open, letting in a sudden gust of freezing river wind and damp autumn drizzle.

The guards shoved Camilla across the threshold, sending her stumbling onto the wet, grease-stained asphalt of the commercial service alley.

Her leather heels skidded across a patch of rotting cabbage leaves and slick restaurant grease, causing her knees to buckle beneath her. Camilla crashed hard onto the wet pavement beside an overflowing industrial trash dumpster, splashing dirty road runoff and gray sewer sludge across the hem of her five-thousand-dollar scarlet wool coat.

Her hair tumbled loose from its pins, plastering wet strands across her forehead as her mascara smeared into dark, grotesque tracks down her cheeks.

Behind her, the security guard tossed her empty alligator handbag into a yellow municipal recycling crate sitting beside the loading ramp.

"The Imperial Gallerie is private property, miss," the guard stated in a flat, emotionless tone. "If you set foot past Crown Avenue before midnight, you will be booked for criminal trespassing under federal commercial statutes."

The heavy iron door slammed shut with a sharp, pressurized click, followed immediately by the sound of heavy deadbolts sliding into place.

Out on the pavement, a dozen municipal garbage collectors, delivery van drivers, and local street food vendors had gathered along the alley mouth, drawn by the sound of screaming. Seeing the haughty sister of Harrison Drake covered in dumpster sludge and sitting in the dirt, several workers pulled out their mobile phones, recording high-resolution video of her hysterics with open, mocking laughter.

"Look at the grand lady of Grandview!" an elderly delivery driver shouted, pointing his wrench toward her soaked clothes. "Looks like someone taught the Drake family how the common citizens smell!"

Camilla sobbed with apoplectic fury, scrambling to her feet while clutching her torn silk dress, dragging her scuffed heels through the mud as she ran toward the public sidewalk on High Street.

Meanwhile, inside the warm, glittering sanctuary of Maison de L’Or, the atmosphere had transformed into deep, reverent quiet.

The remaining boutique staff, trembling with eager subservience, gathered around the display counter where Ada was standing. A veteran sales clerk with twenty years of service carefully carried out the premier mahogany presentation chest, placing the finest artist tools on earth before the young girl.

Inside sat forty-eight porcelain pans of rare, handmade German watercolors crafted from crushed mineral pigments, six fine sable brushes bound in sterling silver, and three thick albums of Italian cold-pressed cotton paper wrapped in soft calfskin.

Ada looked down at the glittering brushes, her large hazel eyes wide with pure, radiant joy. She reached out with gentle, hesitant fingers, touching the smooth wood of the box before looking up into Ethan's face.

"Ethan," Ada whispered, her voice trembling with awe. "Are these really mine? Can I really take them home?"

Ethan smiled with deep, unburdened warmth, resting a hand gently upon her shoulder. "They belong to you, little bird. You can paint every river, every mountain, and every flower you see."

Ada beamed, hugging the heavy wooden box against her cashmere sweater with both arms. She turned her head toward Doctor Aris, her eyes sparkling with innocent generosity.

"Doctor Aris," Ada cheered happily. "Can I share these with the children in the hospital? The gardener at the sanctuary said the pediatric wing has forty new kids who do not have any paper to draw on!"

Doctor Aris wiped a tear from the corner of his wire-rimmed spectacles, bowing his head with profound respect. "You have the kindest heart in this world, young lady. Those children will cherish your gifts for the rest of their lives."

Ethan looked toward Alaric, who stood waiting near the entrance.

"Alaric," Ethan instructed calmly. "Purchase the entire remaining stock of art supplies, paper rolls, and artist easels in this salon. Have our logistics transport ship everything directly to the pediatric recovery pavilion at the Ada Sterling Sanctuary in Oakhaven."

"It will be delivered before nightfall, Young Master," Alaric replied, noting the order on his encrypted pad.

Outside on the rain-swept corner of High Street, Camilla Drake stood shivering beneath an awning, her teeth chattering violently as the freezing drizzle soaked through her torn stockings.

With shaking, manicured fingers smeared with black road grime, Camilla pulled her mobile phone from her pocket, dialing her brother's direct private line with desperate speed.

The call connected on the second ring.

"Harrison!" Camilla wailed into the receiver, her voice cracking into a high-pitched, hysterical shriek that drew stares from passing commuters. "Harrison, you have to kill him! You have to take the state police and murder him right now!"

On the top floor of the Drake Equities Tower on Wharf Street, Harrison Drake paused with his gold fountain pen hovering over a municipal bond application, his brow furrowing in sharp irritation.

"Camilla?" Harrison barked, leaning back in his leather chair. "Why are you screaming like a madwoman? I am in the middle of closing a two-hundred-million-dollar pension allocation with the banking syndicate. What happened to your gown fitting?"

"A lunatic bought the Imperial Gallerie!" Camilla cried, choking on her own tears as she wiped soot from her mouth. "He brought armed men into Maison de L’Or! He had the guards tear my dress, throw my bags in the trash, and shove me into the garbage alley behind the kitchen dumpsters! He blacklisted our entire family from Crown Avenue!"

Harrison shot out of his leather chair, slamming his open palm against the walnut desk with enough concussive force to overturn his crystal water glass.

"Bought the Imperial Gallerie?" Harrison roared, his gray eyes bulging with fury. "That building belongs to European Retail Holdings! Who was this man? What was his name?"

"The boutique director called him Sterling!" Camilla sobbed through the speaker. "Ethan Sterling! He was holding hands with a little sick girl in a white coat!"

Harrison froze mid-breath.

The violent rage on Harrison's face paused for three long seconds, replaced by a look of sheer, incredulous confusion. Harrison slowly lowered the phone an inch, then burst into a sharp, mocking bark of laughter that filled his executive suite.

"Ethan Sterling?" Harrison laughed, shaking his head with dismissive contempt as he sat back down in his chair. "Camilla, you are letting your vanity run away with your senses. Ethan Sterling was a bankrupt vagrant who scrubbed kitchen floorboards for Evelyn Sterling in Oakhaven for three years. He had thirty-eight dollars to his name on Tuesday morning."

"Harrison, he bought the whole company in three minutes!" Camilla shrieked in frantic protest. "The Paris office called Duval on the red line and cried like babies! You did not see his eyes!"

"Listen to me, Camilla," Harrison said, his voice dropping into a smooth, arrogant cadence. "The boy is an empty shell. Some foreign offshore syndicate in Zurich is using his name as a blind nominee to snap up distressed real estate before our sovereign fund rolls out. A beggar does not possess three hundred million dollars in liquid cash."

Harrison picked up his fountain pen once more, twirling the heavy gold casing between his knuckles with smug, absolute confidence.

"Go home, take a warm bath, and put on the sapphire gown in your closet," Harrison commanded with a cold smirk. "Tomorrow evening is the Governor's autumn infrastructure gala at the Grandview Provincial Palace. Governor Donald Sterling will sit at my right hand, and the entire high society of this state will witness Drake Equities assume absolute control of the provincial treasury."

Harrison's eyes narrowed into slits of predatory ambition as he looked out through the smoked glass toward the northern highway.

"Let the little orphan play with retail shops in the rain," Harrison purred with cruel certainty. "Tomorrow night, I will crush his entire foreign syndicate beneath the full weight of the state government, and he will have nothing left to shield his miserable pride."