Chapter 5 - The Fall of the Prince
The interrogation room at the Central District Police Precinct smelled of stale coffee, industrial cleaning chemicals, and shattered dignity.
Evan Mercer sat at the metal table, his designer suit wrinkled, his tie loosened to the point of absurdity. His wrists were bare—the handcuffs had been temporarily removed for his arraignment consultation—but he felt just as trapped as if he were bolted to the floor.
The heavy steel door clicked open, and two men walked in.
One was a public defender assigned to his case—a tired-looking man with a stack of paperwork under his arm. The other was an attorney Evan never expected to see representing his family's interests: James Vance.
Evan slammed his hands down on the metal table, standing up so fast his chair screeched against the concrete floor.
“James! Thank God!” Evan shouted, rushing toward the table. “Get me out of here! This is an insane mistake! My father is Richard Mercer—he’ll have every cop in this precinct fired by the end of the day! And Claire... where is Claire? Make her drop the charges! She’s my wife!”
James stopped, calmly placing his leather briefcase on the table and unzipping it without a word of haste. He didn't look at Evan with fear, or even anger. He looked at him the way a scientist looks at a particularly uninteresting specimen under a microscope.
“Sit down, Evan,” James commanded quietly.
“Sit down?!” Evan yelled, his voice cracking with rising hysteria. “Do you know where I am right now? They put me in a holding cell with drug dealers and car thieves! My face is going to be in every newspaper tomorrow morning!”
“It already is,” James said, sliding a fresh copy of the Financial Times across the metal table.
Evan looked down.
Across the front page, in bold, unforgiving black headlines, read: MERCER LOGISTICS FRAUD SCANDAL: CEO AND FOUNDER INDICTED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR EMBEZZLEMENT SCHEME. Below the headline was a high-resolution photo of federal marshals escorting Richard out of the corporate headquarters in handcuffs. Right beside it was a smaller photo of Evan himself being booked into the county jail.
Evan staggered backward, his knees hitting his chair. He collapsed into it, staring blankly at the paper.
“No... no, this isn't real,” Evan stammered, shaking his head. “Dad said the books were clean. He said the offshore accounts were untraceable.”
“Your father is an arrogant amateur who thought his last name made him immune to federal law,” James said coldly, pulling out a single document and setting it on the table. “And you, Evan, were too busy playing the charismatic billionaire playboy to notice that your wife—the woman you beat, humiliated, and tried to cripple—was holding the master keys to the entire empire the entire time.”
Evan looked up, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. “Where is she? I need to talk to Claire. If I talk to her, she’ll listen. She loves me. She’s just... she’s just having an episode. We can fix this!”
James let out a short, dry laugh that had no humor in it.
“Love?” James asked, leaning forward over the table. “Evan, your wife didn’t call me to negotiate a settlement. She called me to initiate a total corporate liquidation. As of two hours ago, Claire Mercer owns one hundred percent of the voting shares of Mercer Logistics. Your father’s personal assets have been seized. Your mother has been evicted from the Oakridge estate. And you... well, the prosecutor is offering a plea deal.”
Evan’s breath hitched. “A... a plea deal? For what?”
“Ten years in federal penitentiary, pleading guilty to corporate fraud, conspiracy, and physical assault,” James recited smoothly. “If you cooperate and testify against your father, they might shave off two years. If you don't? Well, the judge is notoriously harsh on violent offenders who use weapons against their spouses.”
Evan grabbed the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. “Ten years? Ten years?! I’m thirty-two years old! My life is over!”
“Your life as a parasite is over, Evan,” James corrected, zipping up his briefcase and standing straight. “Consider it a very hard lesson in basic economics. Never bite the hand that feeds you—especially when that hand holds the pen that signs your death warrant.”
As James turned toward the door, Evan screamed in blind fury, lunging across the table.
Before he could take two steps, the heavy steel door flew open. Two federal marshals swarmed the room, tackling Evan face-first onto the cold concrete floor, pinning his arms behind his back with brutal efficiency.
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As they slapped the cold steel handcuffs back onto his wrists, Evan pressed his face against the floor, tears of pure humiliation mixing with the dust of the interrogation room.
And for the first time in his life, Evan Mercer realized that no one was coming to save him.
