Chapter 9 - The Ambush at the Office
By Friday morning, Derek Vance was a desperate man.
He couldn't reach Joselyn; her phone number had been ported to a private corporate line with strict call-blocking. He couldn't access his frozen bank accounts. His landlord had locked his office doors for non-payment, and his luxury lease vehicle had been repossessed from his driveway at dawn.
So, he did what every desperate narcissist does when their illusion crumbles: he came to my battlefield.
At 10:00 AM, Derek pushed through the glass double doors of Weber Engineering’s corporate headquarters downtown. He wore one of his three-thousand-dollar suits, but it was rumpled, his tie was crooked, and his eyes were bloodshot and wild.
"I need to see Frances Weber!" he shouted at my receptionist, brushing past her desk toward the executive corridor. "Where is she?! Where is my wife?!"
"You don't have a wife, Derek," a voice called out calmly from the end of the hall.
Derek spun around.
Standing outside my corner office was Joselyn, flanked by Thomas and two armed private security guards. She stood tall, dressed in a sharp tailored blazer, her chin held high and her arms crossed over her chest.
Derek gasped, trying to force a warm, manipulative smile onto his face as he took a step toward her. "Joselyn! Baby! Thank God! Your mother has locked me out of everything—she’s framing me! She pulled $30,000 out of our account and filed fake police reports! You have to come with me right now so we can fix this!"
Joselyn didn't flinch. She didn't take a step back. She looked at him with an expression of cold, absolute detachment that completely shattered his composure.
"I pulled the $30,000, Derek," Joselyn said, her voice echoing clearly down the marble hallway. "Because it was my money. Earned by my hard work. Not stolen with forged signatures."
"Joselyn, she's brainwashing you!" Derek screamed, his face turning a blotchy, furious red. "She's an old control freak who wants to keep you alone forever!"
"No, Derek," Joselyn replied smoothly, pulling a crisp white envelope from her pocket. "My mother saved my life. And these are for you."
She handed the envelope to Thomas, who stepped forward and served Derek with a stack of formal legal papers.
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"You've been served with a temporary restraining order," Thomas announced firmly. "As well as a civil lawsuit for fraud, tortious interference, and conversion. You have five seconds to turn around and exit these premises before local law enforcement arrests you for criminal trespass."
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