Chapter 3: The First Domain Collapses
Forty-eight hours after the showdown in the NICU, Dominic sat in the sleek, glass-walled corner office of Apex Medical Labs. The air conditioning was humming, but he was sweating profusely.
On the desk in front of him lay a stack of legal documents that had arrived via courier at 8:00 AM.
"What do you mean our shipping lines are frozen?!" Dominic screamed into his phone, his voice cracking with hysteria. "We have three hundred boxes of surgical equipment sitting on the docks ready to go to the tri-state hospital network! If they aren't delivered by Friday, we violate our contract!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Miller," the voice on the other end replied coldly. "Vanguard Logistics has terminated your contract effective immediately due to a 'risk assessment violation.' All your accounts with us have been locked."
"You can't do that! That’s breach of contract!"
"Take us to court then," the logistics manager said, before abruptly hanging up.
Dominic slammed the phone down, his chest heaving. His door burst open, and his CFO rushed in, looking completely panicked. "Dominic, we have a massive problem. Our primary lender, Crestview Capital, just sold our $1.5 million revolving line of credit to a private equity firm called V.V. Holdings."
Dominic’s heart skipped a beat. "V.V.? Who the hell is V.V.?"
"We don't know, but they just issued an immediate margin call. Because our shipping lines are frozen, they claim our asset-to-debt ratio has dropped below the safety threshold. They are demanding full repayment of the $1.5 million within forty-eight hours, or they foreclose on the company."
Dominic fell back into his leather chair, the room spinning. How is this happening? Just two days ago, he was on top of the world. He had a beautiful, rich mistress, a brand-new child on the way, and he had successfully dumped his high-maintenance, bankrupt wife and her expensive, sick premature twins.
Suddenly, his personal cell phone rang. It was Natalie.
"Dominic! You need to get to the penthouse right now!" she shrieked, sobbing hysterically. "There are men here! Men in suits! They’re changing the locks on the doors!"
"What?! Natalie, calm down, that penthouse is in your name! I bought it with cash!"
"They say the cash came from a fraudulent transfer of a private trust fund belonging to an Audrey Vance!" Natalie screamed. "They have a federal injunction, Dominic! They’re wheeling out my Chanel bags! They’re taking my jewelry! They told me if I don't leave the premises in ten minutes, I'll be arrested for receiving stolen property!"
Dominic dropped the phone. The room went completely silent except for the dull roar of his own blood pumping in his ears.
Audrey Vance.
Not Audrey Miller. Not Audrey the orphan.
Vance. As in Vance Global. As in the family that practically owned the entire state’s medical infrastructure.
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He looked down at his trembling hands. He remembered her words from two nights ago: “Someone seems to have forgotten that these newborns are your great-grandchildren... and that they're standing inside your hospital.”
He had thought it was a delusion brought on by post-labor trauma. But it wasn't. He hadn't married a nobody. He had married the sole heiress to a multi-billion-dollar empire, and he had just tried to starve her and her babies to death in a hospital room.
