The Meeting Worth More Than Life
The automatic doors of St. Jude’s Emergency Room slid open with a hiss, admitting a gust of sterile, refrigerated air that smelled faintly of antiseptic and old coffee. It was 1:42 PM on a Tuesday, and the waiting room was a chaotic tableau of human misery: a child crying with a broken arm, an elderly woman coughing into a handkerchief, a man clutching his side and groaning softly.
Through this scene walked Evan Kingsley. He did not look like he belonged here.
He was wearing a bespoke Italian suit, charcoal grey, cut to perfection. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the dull linoleum floor. He moved with the impatient stride of a man whose time was worth thousands of dollars a minute. He wasn’t looking at the suffering around him. He was looking at his phone.
FROM: HAROLD BENTON (CHAIRMAN)
SUBJECT: Q3 BOARD MEETING
TIME: 2:00 PM SHARP
Don’t be late, Evan. The shareholders are restless. We need those projections.
Evan typed a quick reply: On my way. Just dealing with a minor family issue.
He hit send and shoved the phone into his pocket as he approached the nurses’ station.
“Where is she?” he demanded, not bothering with a greeting. “Julia Kingsley. She was brought in ten minutes ago.”
The nurse behind the counter, a woman named Maria who had seen everything from gunshot wounds to cardiac arrests, looked up slowly. She took in Evan’s expensive watch, his arrogant tone, and the way he tapped his fingers on the counter.
“Are you the husband?” she asked, her voice flat.
“Yes. Obviously. Where is she? I have a meeting in twenty minutes.”
Maria’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Your wife is in Trauma Room 1. The doctors are with her now. It’s serious, Mr. Kingsley.”
“Serious?” Evan scoffed. “She called me crying about a stomach ache. She’s pregnant, for God’s sake. Women get cramps.”
“Sir,” Maria said, her voice dropping to a steely whisper. “She’s hemorrhaging. Her blood pressure is 80 over 50. The baby’s heart rate is decelerating. You need to get in there.”
For a split second, a flicker of something that might have been concern crossed Evan’s face, but it was quickly replaced by annoyance. He checked his watch again. 1:45 PM.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Lead the way.”
Maria led him down the hallway, past curtained alcoves where machines beeped and voices murmured. They stopped outside Trauma Room 1. Through the glass, Evan could see a flurry of activity. Nurses were hanging bags of blood. A doctor was shouting orders. And in the middle of it all, Julia.
She looked small. So small. Her skin was the color of ash, her lips blue. Her hospital gown was cut open, revealing her swollen belly, but below that… below that was a terrifying amount of red.
Evan felt a wave of nausea, not from empathy, but from disgust. He hated hospitals. He hated weakness. And right now, Julia looked weak.
He pushed open the door.
“Evan!” Julia gasped when she saw him. Her voice was a ragged whisper. She reached out a hand, her fingers trembling violently. “Evan… the baby… something’s wrong…”
The trauma surgeon, Dr. Aris Thorne, looked up. He was sweating, his mask pulled down for a moment to speak clearly.
“Mr. Kingsley,” Dr. Thorne said urgently. “We have a placental abruption. The placenta has detached from the uterine wall. She’s bleeding internally and externally. The baby is in distress. We need to perform an emergency C-section now to save them both.”
“Save them?” Evan repeated, as if the concept was foreign. “Is it that bad?”
“Yes, it is that bad,” Dr. Thorne snapped. “If we don’t operate in the next five minutes, you could lose your wife and your child. We need your consent for the anesthesia and the surgery since she’s in shock.”
A nurse thrust a clipboard at Evan. “Sign here, here, and here.”
Evan took the pen. He looked at the forms. Risks include infection, hemorrhage, death…
He looked at Julia. Tears were streaming down her face, mixing with the sweat on her brow.
“Evan, please,” she begged. “Stay with me. I’m scared. I don’t want to do this alone.”
Evan looked at her, then back at his watch. 1:48 PM. If he left now, he could make it to the boardroom by 2:05. He could blame traffic. He could still salvage the presentation.
But if he stayed… if he sat here holding her hand while they cut her open… he would miss the meeting. Harold would be disappointed. The stock might dip if the restructuring plan wasn’t presented with his usual charisma.
He made his choice.
He signed the papers quickly, the pen scratching loud in the tense room.
“There,” he said, handing the clipboard back to the nurse. “Do whatever you have to do.”
“Thank you,” Julia sobbed, relief washing over her face. “Thank you, Evan. Just hold my hand until I go under.”
Evan took a step back. He didn’t take her hand. He smoothed his tie.
“I can’t stay, Julia,” he said.
The room went silent. The beeping of the monitors seemed to get louder.
“What?” Julia whispered.
“I have the board meeting,” Evan said, his voice reasonable, as if explaining to a child why they couldn’t have candy before dinner. “The Q3 earnings. You know how important this is. I’ve been working on this merger for six months.”
“Evan…” Julia’s voice cracked. “I’m dying. Our baby is dying.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Evan said, leaning in closer. The smell of his expensive cologne—sandalwood and musk—clashed violently with the metallic scent of blood. “You have the best doctors money can buy. I’m paying a fortune for this. My job is to make sure the checks clear. Your job is to… well, lie there and let them fix you.”
He looked at Dr. Thorne. “Call me when it’s over. And don’t bother me with updates unless it’s catastrophic. I need to focus.”
“Sir,” Dr. Thorne said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Your wife is asking for you. Human contact reduces stress. It improves outcomes.”
“Stress?” Evan laughed, a cold, sharp sound. “You think this is stress? Try managing a billion-dollar portfolio while your wife nags you about nursery colors. That’s stress. This… this is biology.”
He turned back to Julia. She was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. The love he usually saw there—the adoration that fed his ego—was gone. In its place was something hollow.
“I have to go,” Evan said. “I don’t support dead weight, Julia. You know that. We have a partnership. I bring the money, you bring the… domestic stability. Right now, you’re not holding up your end of the bargain.”
He checked his reflection in the glass of the door, adjusted his cufflinks, and walked out.
As the door swung shut, he heard Julia’s wail. It wasn’t a scream of pain. It was the sound of a heart breaking.
Evan didn’t look back. He marched down the hallway, pulling out his phone.
To: Assistant
Message: Have the car ready. I’ll be there in 10. And cancel Julia’s maternity leave. If she survives this, she can work remotely from the recovery room. We’re behind on the audit.
He stepped out into the humid afternoon air, took a deep breath, and hailed his driver. He felt lighter. The burden of empathy was heavy, and Evan Kingsley traveled light.
Chapter 2: The Chart and The Email
The world came back in pieces. First, the sound—a rhythmic, mechanical whoosh-beep that seemed to sync with the throbbing in Julia’s head. Then, the smell—sharp, chemical, like bleach and old flowers. Finally, the light—a blinding white fluorescent glare that forced her to squint.
Julia tried to move, but her body felt like it was made of lead. A sharp, searing pain tore through her lower abdomen, and she gasped.
“Easy, easy,” a gentle voice said.
A nurse appeared in her field of vision. She had kind eyes and a name tag that read Elena.
“You’re in the ICU, honey,” Elena said softly, adjusting a pillow behind Julia’s head. “You had a rough time. But you made it.”
“The baby?” Julia croaked, her throat dry as sandpaper.
Elena smiled and pointed to the side. There, in a clear plastic bassinet hooked up to wires and tubes, was a tiny, pink bundle.
“She’s a fighter,” Elena said. “Four pounds, six ounces. But her lungs are strong. She’s been waiting for you.”
Julia stared at the baby. Her daughter. Alive. A sob caught in her throat, relief washing over her so powerfully it made her dizzy.
Then, the memory hit her.
Dead weight.
She looked around the room. It was spacious, private—the kind of room Evan’s platinum insurance paid for. There was a leather recliner in the corner, a large TV on the wall, and a view of the city skyline.
But the recliner was empty.
“My husband?” Julia asked, dread pooling in her stomach.
Elena’s expression tightened. She looked away, busying herself with the IV drip. “Mr. Kingsley… hasn’t been back since yesterday.”
“Since yesterday?”
“He called once,” Elena said, trying to be diplomatic. “To ask about the billing codes for the anesthesia. He said he wanted to make sure they were ‘in network’.”
Julia closed her eyes. Of course.
“Is my phone here?” she asked.
Elena hesitated, then reached into the drawer of the bedside table. “It’s been buzzing a lot. I put it on silent so you could rest.”
She handed Julia the phone.
The screen was lit up with notifications.
12 Missed Calls from Mom.
5 Missed Calls from Dad.
1 Email from Evan Kingsley.
Julia’s finger hovered over the email app. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She opened it.
Subject: URGENT: Q3 Expense Report & Work Status
From: Evan Kingsley
Sent: Today, 8:45 AM
Julia,
I assume you are awake by now. I called the nurse station and they said you were stable. Good.
I need you to log in to the cloud server immediately. The Q3 expense report for the household is a mess. There are three charges from ‘Whole Foods’ that don’t match the budget receipts. Fix them.
Also, I spoke to HR. Since you are just lying in bed recovering, there is no reason you cannot handle your emails. I have cancelled your maternity leave request. We are in a critical period with the merger, and I need all hands on deck. You can work remotely. I expect the updated spreadsheets by EOD.
P.S. The hospital bill is exorbitant. Make sure you itemize everything. I don’t want to pay for unnecessary Tylenol.
– Evan
Julia read it twice. Then a third time. The words blurred as tears filled her eyes.
He didn’t ask about the baby. He didn’t ask how she was feeling. He treated her major abdominal surgery and near-death experience as an inconvenience to his accounting.
“He cancelled my maternity leave,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “He wants me to work.”
“He what?”
The voice came from the doorway. It was deep, resonant, and shaking with suppressed rage.
Julia looked up. Harold Benton stood there. Her father.
He looked older than she remembered. His silver hair was disheveled, his tie crooked—something she had never seen in her life. Harold was a man of immense dignity, the Chairman of a global corporation, a man who commanded boardrooms with a whisper. But right now, he looked like a terrified father.
“Dad,” Julia cried, reaching out her arms.
Harold crossed the room in two strides and enveloped her in a hug that smelled of cigar smoke and rain. He held her tight, careful of the wires, rocking her slightly like he used to when she was a child.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Harold said, his voice thick with emotion. “Evan told me… he told me you were fine. He said it was a routine procedure. I didn’t know you were in the ICU until your mother called the hospital directly.”
“He left me, Dad,” Julia sobbed into his shoulder. “In the ER. He said he had a meeting. He called me dead weight.”
Harold pulled back. His face was a mask of stone. “He said what?”
“He said I was dead weight,” Julia repeated, handing him her phone. “Read the email.”
Harold took the phone. He read the message. His eyes narrowed. The vein in his temple began to throb.
He walked over to the window, turning his back to her for a moment. Julia saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath. When he turned back, his expression was terrifyingly calm. It was the face of a man who had decided to destroy something.
“Doctor,” Harold said to Dr. Thorne, who had just entered the room to check on his patient.
“Yes, Mr. Benton?” Dr. Thorne looked wary. He knew who Harold was. Everyone did.
“I want a full record,” Harold said quietly. “I want the security footage from the ER waiting room. I want witness statements from every nurse who interacted with my son-in-law. I want a transcript of every word he said to you regarding his refusal to stay with his dying wife.”
Dr. Thorne nodded grimly. “We document non-compliance, sir. It’s already in the chart. He… he checked his watch while we were explaining the risk of fetal death.”
“Checked his watch,” Harold repeated, almost to himself. “Of course he did.”
He turned back to Julia. “You are not working today. You are not working tomorrow. In fact, you are done working for him.”
“But the merger…” Julia started, her conditioned reflex to please Evan kicking in.
“Screw the merger,” Harold said. “And screw him.”
At that moment, the door swung open.
Evan Kingsley walked in.
He looked fresh, rested. He was wearing a new suit, navy blue this time. He held a Starbucks cup in one hand and a thick file folder in the other. He didn’t look at the baby. He didn’t even look at Julia’s face. He looked at the empty chair next to the bed and frowned.
“Finally,” Evan said, placing the coffee on the tray table. “I thought you’d be asleep all day. We have work to do.”
He noticed Harold standing by the window. For a fraction of a second, Evan’s smooth mask slipped. He looked surprised, maybe even a little annoyed.
“Harold?” Evan said, forcing a smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you’d be at the club. The Q3 numbers I presented yesterday were… stellar, weren’t they?”
He walked over to the bed, pulled out a stack of papers from the folder, and dumped them onto Julia’s legs, right over her incision site.
“Here,” Evan said to Julia. “These are the invoices. Sort them by date. And hurry up. I need to submit them by 5 PM.”
He turned back to Harold, puffing out his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re here to coddle her, Harold. Julia knows the drill. Business first. Right, honey?”
Chapter 3: The Secret Envelope
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. Even the baby seemed to sense the tension and stopped shifting in her sleep.
Harold looked at the papers scattered on his daughter’s legs. Then he looked at Evan.
“Pick them up,” Harold said softly.
Evan blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Pick up the papers,” Harold repeated, his voice dropping an octave. “You threw work documents on your wife who just had major surgery. Pick them up.”
Evan laughed nervously. “Oh, come on, Harold. Don’t be melodramatic. She’s fine. The doctor said she’s stable. She can use her hands, can’t she?”
“Who do you think you are, Evan?” Harold asked, taking a step closer.
Evan straightened his tie, regaining his composure. “I am the CEO of your company. I am the man who just delivered a 20% increase in stock value. I am the reason you can afford to retire in luxury. You need me. This company needs me.”
“This company needs integrity,” Harold said. “And you, Evan, are a fraud.”
“A fraud?” Evan’s face flushed red. “I work harder than anyone! I make the tough calls! While everyone else is crying about feelings, I’m cutting costs! I’m maximizing profit!”
“Is that what you call it?” Harold asked. “Maximizing profit?”
He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled out a thick, manila envelope. It wasn’t a standard office envelope. It bore the embossed seal of Sterling & Associates, a forensic accounting firm known for being the grim reapers of the corporate world.
Harold tossed the envelope onto the tray table, right next to Evan’s Starbucks cup.
Thud.
“What is this?” Evan asked, eyeing the envelope suspiciously.
“Open it,” Harold said.
Evan hesitated. He looked at Julia, who was watching him with wide, fearful eyes. Then he picked up the envelope and tore it open.
He pulled out a stack of documents. Spreadsheets. Bank transfer records. Emails.
Evan’s eyes scanned the first page. His face went pale.
“I’ve been watching the accounts, Evan,” Harold said, his voice calm and deadly. “For six months. Ever since you bought that new yacht you claimed was a ‘corporate retreat expense’.”
“This… this is wrong,” Evan stammered. “These numbers are… they’re just drafts. Projections!”
“Page four,” Harold instructed. “Look at the vendor payments.”
Evan flipped to page four.
Vendor: Apex Consulting Group. Location: Cayman Islands. Amount: $4.2 Million.
“Apex Consulting,” Harold mused. “Interesting company. No website. No employees. Just a P.O. Box in Grand Cayman. And the registered owner? A shell company controlled by one ‘EK Holdings’.”
Evan dropped the papers. His hands were shaking.
“It’s… it’s a tax strategy,” he tried to argue, but his voice lacked its usual arrogance. “Everyone does it! It’s creative accounting to lower our liability!”
“Stealing from the pension fund to pay your own shell company isn’t tax strategy, Evan,” Harold said. “It’s embezzlement. It’s wire fraud. It’s money laundering.”
“You can’t prove intent!” Evan shouted. “I was going to pay it back! It was a loan!”
“A loan?” Harold laughed humorlessly. “Without board approval? Without documentation? And what about the other account? The one paying for the apartment in the city? The one where your ‘executive assistant’ lives?”
Julia gasped. She looked at Evan. “You… you have an apartment?”
Evan ignored her. He was focused entirely on Harold now, like a cornered rat.
“You investigated me?” Evan hissed. “After everything I did for you? I made you rich!”
“I was already rich,” Harold said coldly. “You made me ashamed. Ashamed that I let a man like you into my family. Ashamed that I let you near my daughter.”
Harold pointed to the envelope.
“That is the full forensic audit. It traces every cent you stole. Every inflated invoice. Every kickback.”
“You haven’t shown this to anyone yet, have you?” Evan asked, hope flickering in his eyes. “This is just between us. We can work this out. I can pay it back! I’ll sell the yacht! I’ll sell the house!”
“This is a copy,” Harold said. “The original is sitting in a safe in my office. Along with a draft letter to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Whether I mail that letter depends entirely on what happens in the next five minutes.”
Chapter 4: The Arrogant’s Plea
The room spun around Evan. The beep of the heart monitor seemed to mock him.
He looked at the door. He could run. He could get to the airport. But his assets were likely frozen, or would be soon. He looked at Harold. The old man was immovable, a monolith of judgment.
He looked at Julia.
“Julia,” Evan said, his voice cracking. He rushed to the side of the bed, falling to his knees. He grabbed her hand—the hand he hadn’t held when she was dying.
“Julia, baby, please,” he begged, tears streaming down his face. “Talk to him. Tell him! Tell him I’m a good husband! I provide for us! I did it all for us! For the baby!”
Julia looked down at him. She saw the sweat on his upper lip. She saw the pathetic desperation in his eyes.
“For the baby?” she whispered.
She pulled her hand away. It felt heavy, but strong.
“You didn’t even look at her when you walked in, Evan,” she said. “You walked right past her bassinet. You put work papers on my incision. You didn’t ask if she was okay. You didn’t ask if I was okay.”
“I was stressed!” Evan cried. “I was worried about the audit! I knew he was looking! I was trying to fix it so we could be happy!”
“Happy?” Julia shook her head. “You called me dead weight, Evan. You told me to work from my hospital bed. That’s not love. That’s ownership.”
“Harold, please!” Evan turned to his father-in-law, clutching the hem of Harold’s jacket. “Think about the company! If the CEO goes to jail for fraud, the stock will tank! The shareholders will revolt! You’ll lose millions! You need me to steer the ship!”
“The shareholders hate thieves,” Harold said, kicking Evan’s hand away. “And the stock will recover once we announce we’ve purged the cancer.”
“I’m not cancer!” Evan screamed. “I’m the visionary!”
“You’re a parasite,” Harold corrected.
Harold reached into his briefcase and pulled out two documents. He threw them on the floor in front of Evan.
“Document one,” Harold said. “A letter of resignation. Effective immediately. Citing ‘personal health reasons’ and a desire to ‘spend time with family.’ It allows you to save a tiny shred of face.”
“Document two,” Harold continued. “A divorce settlement. Uncontested. You waive all rights to Julia’s assets. You waive all rights to marital property. You waive all custody of the child. You leave with nothing but the clothes on your back and whatever is left in your personal checking account—which I assume isn’t much since you spent it all on Apex Consulting.”
Evan stared at the papers. “Leave with nothing? But I built this life! The house! The cars!”
“Bought with stolen money,” Harold said. “Sign them. Both of them. Right now.”
“And if I don’t?” Evan challenged weakly.
Harold pulled out his phone. “Then I press send on this email to the District Attorney. And instead of walking out of here broke, you walk out of here in handcuffs, facing twenty years in federal prison.”
Evan looked at the phone. He looked at the papers.
He realized it was over. The game was rigged, and he had been playing against the house the whole time.
With a trembling hand, he picked up the pen Harold offered.
He crawled over to the tray table. He signed the resignation letter. The signature was shaky, a jagged scrawl.
Then he looked at the divorce papers. He looked at Julia one last time.
“You’ll regret this,” he whispered venomously. “You can’t make it without me. You’re soft. You don’t know how the real world works. You’ll bankrupt the company in a month.”
Julia looked at him. She felt a fire ignite in her chest.
“I wrote the strategy documents you presented, Evan,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “I did the market research. I built the financial models. You just stood in front of the projector and took the credit. I don’t need you. I never did.”
Evan glared at her. He signed the divorce papers.
Harold snatched the documents up immediately.
“Get out,” Harold said.
“My car…” Evan started.
“Company lease,” Harold said. “Leave the keys on the table. Security is waiting for you in the lobby. Don’t make a scene, or I’ll have you dragged out.”
Evan stood up. He swayed slightly. He looked at the baby one last time—not with love, but with resentment, as if she were the cause of his downfall.
He placed his car keys on the table. He turned and walked out of the room.
The door clicked shut.
Chapter 5: The Real Weight
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the heart monitor and the hum of the air conditioning.
Then, Julia exhaled. It was a long, shuddering breath that seemed to expel years of poison from her lungs.
“He’s gone,” she whispered.
“He’s gone,” Harold confirmed, tucking the signed documents safely into his briefcase.
Julia began to cry. Not the silent, terrified tears of before, but loud, racking sobs of relief. Harold sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, Jules.”
“I was so scared, Dad,” she cried. “I thought I was stuck. I thought he owned me.”
“Nobody owns you,” Harold said fiercely. “You are a Benton. You are a fighter.”
Julia wiped her eyes and looked at the bassinet. “Is she okay? Did all this… yelling hurt her?”
Harold walked over and peered into the plastic tub. The baby was awake, her dark eyes blinking up at the ceiling, unbothered.
“She’s tough,” Harold smiled. “Just like her mother.”
“What do we do now?” Julia asked, panic starting to creep back in. “The company… the scandal… if Evan is gone, who runs things? The board will panic.”
“Let them panic for a day,” Harold said. “Then we give them the solution.”
“What solution?”
Harold reached into his briefcase one last time. He pulled out a single sheet of paper.
MEMORANDUM TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
SUBJECT: APPOINTMENT OF INTERIM CEO
CANDIDATE: JULIA BENTON KINGSLEY
Julia stared at the paper. “Me?”
“You,” Harold said.
“Dad, I just had a C-section. I have a newborn. I haven’t been in the office in weeks. I’m… I’m a mess.”
“You are the smartest person in that building,” Harold said, his voice serious. “I read your emails to him, Julia. I saw your edits on his presentations. I saw the notes you made in the margins of the board packets. You’ve been running this company from the shadows for two years. Evan was just the face. You were the brain.”
“But I’m tired,” she whispered. “I’m so tired.”
“We’ll hire help,” Harold said. “I’ll come out of retirement to act as Chairman and advise you. We’ll build a nursery in the executive suite. We’ll hire a nanny. But we are not letting a man like that define our legacy. You can do this.”
Julia looked at the paper. She thought about Evan’s words. Dead weight.
He had made her feel small. He had made her feel like a burden. But as she held the appointment letter, she realized the truth.
The weight wasn’t her. The weight wasn’t the baby.
The weight was him. His ego. His greed. His constant need for validation. He was the anchor dragging her down, and she had been swimming with it tied to her ankle for years.
Now, the chain was cut. She felt lighter. She felt… buoyant.
“Okay,” Julia said, a small smile touching her lips. “I’ll do it. But first… can someone get me a real meal? Hospital jello isn’t going to cut it for a CEO.”
Harold laughed. “I’ll order a steak from The Palm. Medium rare.”
Chapter 6: The New Author
Six Months Later.
The executive boardroom of Benton Global was bathed in morning sunlight. The long mahogany table was polished to a shine.
At the head of the table sat Julia Benton. She was wearing a cream-colored power suit. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek bun. She looked tired—she had been up at 3 AM for a feeding—but her eyes were sharp, focused.
“Thank you all for the quarterly reports,” she said to the twelve board members seated around her. “The numbers are solid. We’ve recovered 80% of the embezzled funds through legal action, and the restructuring is actually working now that we’re not siphoning money to shell companies.”
The board members nodded appreciatively. There had been skepticism at first—a young mother taking over after a scandal—but Julia had silenced them with competence. She knew the business better than Evan ever did.
“One more thing,” Julia said, tapping a folder on the table. “The new family leave policy. It goes into effect today. Six months paid leave for both mothers and fathers. No questions asked. No ‘working remotely from the hospital.’ We treat our people like humans, not assets.”
There were a few murmurs of concern about cost, but no one argued. They respected her too much.
After the meeting adjourned, Julia walked back to her corner office. She passed the large TV screen in the lobby where the financial news network was playing.
“Former Tech CEO Evan Kingsley Indicted on 12 Counts of Wire Fraud. Faces 20 Years in Federal Prison. Trial Set for Next Month.”
The image on the screen showed Evan in handcuffs, being led out of a courthouse. He looked disheveled, unshaven. He looked small. He looked like… dead weight.
Julia stopped for a moment. She didn’t feel happy. She didn’t feel vindicated. She just felt… finished. He was a story she used to tell, a chapter she had closed.
She walked into her office.
In the corner, where a wet bar used to be, there was now a high-end playpen. Inside, her six-month-old daughter, Maya, was sitting up, chewing on a soft toy giraffe. Harold was sitting on the floor next to her, in his three-piece suit, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
“How did it go?” Harold asked, looking up.
“It went well,” Julia said, picking up Maya. The baby cooed and grabbed her necklace. “We’re profitable. And we’re decent.”
“That’s all I ever wanted,” Harold smiled, struggling a bit to stand up. “You’re doing a good job, Jules.”
“I had a good teacher,” she replied.
Evan had thought he was the protagonist of the story. He thought the world revolved around his ambition, his needs, his narrative. He thought he could write the characters out when they no longer served him.
But he forgot the most important rule of storytelling:
Villains don’t get to write the ending.
Julia kissed her daughter’s head and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city she now helped build.
“Ready to go home, Dad?” she asked.
“Ready when you are, boss,” Harold said.
And together, the author and the new protagonist walked out of the building, leaving the dead weight behind in the ink of yesterday’s news.
