Chapter 6 - The Fallout at the Office
While Marcus was filing the emergency paperwork at the county courthouse, Spencer was sitting in his glass-walled corner office on the twelfth floor of the tech corporate headquarters downtown.
He looked like hell.
He hadn't slept a wink. After fleeing the disastrous gender reveal party on Saturday, he had spent the entire weekend bouncing between cheap motels and cheap whiskey, his phone buzzing incessantly with missed calls and unread messages from both Chloe’s family and his own bewildered relatives. Every attempt to call Chloe had gone straight to voicemail. When he tried texting her, his messages remained stubbornly unread—blocked.
Now, sitting at his executive desk, Spencer was trying to compose an email to his department head, attempting to spin a narrative about a "family medical emergency" that would allow him to take an unexpected week of remote leave. His hands shook as he typed, his mind racing through catastrophic scenarios.
Did Martha actually keep the papers? Did she show them to anyone else? Could Chloe really prove anything?
He tried to convince himself that it was all circumstantial. Text messages could be faked. Screenshots could be doctored. He could claim someone hacked his phone, or that the mystery woman—Jessica—had gone rogue out of spite because he tried to break things off with her.
Yes, Spencer thought, a desperate flicker of hope igniting in his chest. I’ll blame Jessica. I’ll say she was a deranged stalker who somehow got ahold of my phone, fabricated those texts, and tried to sabotage my family.
Before he could finish typing the excuse, a sharp, heavy knock echoed against the glass door of his office.
Spencer jumped, looking up quickly.
Standing on the other side of the glass wasn't his department head. It was two uniformed police officers, accompanied by a tall man in a dark grey suit holding a manila folder, and the building’s head of corporate security.
Spencer’s blood ran ice-cold. He stood up slowly from his leather executive chair, his legs feeling like lead.
The door pushed open. The building security manager stepped inside first, looking at Spencer with undisguised contempt.
"Spencer," the manager said flatly. "These officers have a warrant to search your office and a subpoena for your corporate devices. You need to come with them."
"A—a warrant?" Spencer stammered, forcing a shaky, bewildered smile as he backed up against his desk. "There must be some kind of mistake. What is this about? I'm a senior project manager here, I haven't done—"
"Mr. Spencer Vance?" one of the police officers interrupted, stepping forward with a stern expression. "You are being served with a civil restraining order, a temporary injunction on marital assets, and an emergency custody filing. Furthermore, we have a warrant for your arrest on charges of fraud, tampering with medical and lab records, and intentional infliction of emotional distress."
"Arrest?" Spencer’s voice cracked, pitching upward into a desperate squeak. "That's insane! My wife is pregnant, she’s hormonal, she’s making things up—"
"Save it for the magistrate, Mr. Vance," the second officer said, stepping up beside him and firmly clicking a pair of cold steel handcuffs around his wrists.
The click of the metal cuffs echoed sharply in the quiet, sterile office.
May you like
As the officers escorted him out from behind his desk, walking him past the rows of open cubicles where dozens of his coworkers stopped typing to stare in stunned silence, Spencer felt the ground completely drop out from under him. The expensive suit, the charismatic smile, the high-flying tech career, the carefully constructed facade of the devoted husband and father—it all evaporated in less than thirty seconds.
He had played a high-stakes game of psychological chess, believing he was the grandmaster. But he had forgotten one crucial rule: when you build a house of cards out of lies, it only takes one honest breath to bring the whole thing crashing down.
