Chapter 6 - The Motel Room
By nightfall, the autumn air turned bitter cold.
A light, icy rain was falling over Stamford, Connecticut, turning the neon lights of the roadside strip into blurry smears of red and yellow against the wet asphalt.
Room 114 of the Starlight Motor Inn smelled of damp carpet, old tobacco, and cheap disinfectant.
Ethan sat on the edge of a sagging queen mattress, his head in his hands. He was still wearing the sweatpants he had pulled on six hours ago. His luxury silk robe lay crumpled in a corner like a discarded rag.
Across the tiny room, standing by the buzzing microwave, was Vanessa.
Her expensive blow-dry had collapsed into limp, greasy strands around her face. Her designer mascara was smudged under her eyes, and her fingernails—usually manicured every Thursday—were jagged and chipped from dragging her heavy suitcases across the parking lot.
"This is a dump, Ethan!" she shrieked, slamming her palm against the laminate counter. "There’s mold on the bathroom ceiling! The heater sounds like a lawnmower! I am not staying here another night!"
"Where do you want to go, Vanessa?!" Ethan roared back, lifting his red, swollen face. "Tell me! Which five-star hotel takes fifty dollars cash a night with no credit card on file?! Tell me!"
"Call your friends!" she screamed. "Call Mark! Call Spencer! You bought Spencer a twenty-thousand-dollar watch for his birthday last year! Tell him we need to use his guest house!"
Ethan let out a bitter, hysterical laugh. "I called Spencer from the payphone at the gas station three hours ago, Vanessa. You know what he said? He said he heard about the trust freeze. He said he doesn't want his name anywhere near a domestic violence investigation. He hung up on me!"
"They're coward! All of them!" Vanessa wept, sinking onto a plastic chair near the window. "We had everything yesterday! We were supposed to go to St. Barts next month! We had reservations at Le Bernardin for our anniversary!"
"We didn't have anything," Ethan said softly, the harsh truth burning through his throat like acid. "My mother had everything. And I threw her through a door."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The heavy wood of the motel door rattled on its hinges.
Ethan froze. Vanessa stopped crying instantly, her eyes widening in terror.
"Who is that?" she whispered. "Did your mother send her lawyers again?"
Ethan walked slowly to the door, pulled back the thin plastic curtain, and peeked through the dusty window pane.
Standing outside in the pouring rain were two men wearing heavy leather jackets. One was tall and broad-shouldered, with a deep scar running from his ear to his jawline. The other was holding an electronic tablet wrapped in a clear plastic bag to keep it dry.
Ethan's stomach dropped into a cold, bottomless pit.
It wasn't the police. It wasn't Martin Hale.
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It was Victor—the chief enforcement agent for Apex Capital, the private hard-money lender Ethan had borrowed two point eight million dollars from six months ago.
"Ethan," Victor’s muffled voice came through the thick door, calm, heavy, and terrifying. "Open the door, son. We need to have a conversation about your collateral."
