Chapter 5 - DAMIAN TOOK HER FATHER TO FORCE HER BACK
Evelyn was out of bed before the phone stopped vibrating.
Roman told her to call Priya immediately.
Priya was still at the hotel.
Evelyn’s father had left the ballroom approximately 40 minutes earlier.
Fletcher, Damian’s associate, left 2 minutes later.
Priya had tried to follow them but lost them in the lobby.
Her father’s phone now went directly to voicemail.
Evelyn told Priya to remain at the hotel and stay near her mother.
Her mother, Priya reported, was in a private dining room on her 2nd scotch, telling anyone who would listen that Evelyn had suffered a breakdown.
Roman began making calls.
Fletcher was Damian’s operational manager, the man who handled situations from which Damian needed visible distance.
Roman did not believe Damian intended to physically harm Evelyn’s father. That would create unnecessary criminal exposure.
This was controlled psychological pressure.
Damian had identified another vulnerability and was using it.
The injunction.
The mental-health motion.
Now her father.
Every exit was being blocked at once.
Roman located him.
A corporate suite on Park Avenue.
Evelyn knew the building. It was one of Damian’s satellite offices, used for meetings he did not want conducted at his main headquarters.
She was going.
Roman warned her that this was precisely what Damian wanted.
If she entered his controlled environment, he could document her presence and use it to reinforce his public narrative: Evelyn appeared unstable while Damian appeared to be responsibly managing a crisis.
Evelyn understood.
But Damian had her father.
Roman had no alternative capable of getting him out within the next hour.
Evelyn put Roman’s jacket back on.
Roman reached for his keys.
The drive uptown took 22 minutes.
At the corner, Evelyn told Roman to stay in the car.
Whatever happened inside, he was not to enter unless she called.
Roman agreed.
Evelyn crossed the sidewalk alone.
The security guard was expecting her.
He did not ask her name.
He simply handed her a visitor badge and told her to go to the 42nd floor.
Her father was sitting in a chair near the window when she entered the corporate suite.
Fletcher stood against the opposite wall.
He was in his late 40s, broad through the shoulders, with the dense physical presence of a man whose job did not require overt aggression to communicate threat.
He told Evelyn that Damian wanted to speak with her.
Evelyn said her father was leaving.
Fletcher claimed Mr. Sterling was there voluntarily.
Evelyn turned to her father.
“Are you here voluntarily?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
Evelyn told Fletcher she would remain for whatever conversation Damian wanted, but her father would leave.
Fletcher refused.
Evelyn reminded him that her father had a heart condition.
If his cardiologist were asked whether prolonged stress constituted a health risk, the answer would become part of a record. If Fletcher continued detaining him, that record could become relevant to the rapidly developing legal case around Damian.
Fletcher considered her for 4 seconds.
Then he stepped aside.
Evelyn helped her father to his feet.
He looked at her uncovered face.
For the first time, he saw the bruise clearly.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Evelyn told him to return to Priya at the hotel and speak to no one from Damian’s organization until she contacted him.
Her father looked briefly like the man he had been before Sterling Capital began collapsing.
“I understand,” he said.
Evelyn watched him leave.
Then she turned to Fletcher.
“Where is he?”
Fletcher indicated the connecting door.
May you like
Damian had been in the adjoining room the entire time.
Evelyn opened the connecting door.
