Chapter 6 - The Professional Sabotage
Friday morning sunlight cut through the vertical blinds of Arthur Sterling’s corner office on the 14th floor of the downtown corporate tower. Arthur, a man who had always treated me with professional respect during my five years at the firm, looked uneasy as he motioned for me to take a seat across from his mahogany desk.
“Anna,” Arthur began, folding his hands together. “I’m going to be straight with you. We’ve received some very disturbing communications this morning.”
My stomach plummeted. “Communications? From whom?”
Arthur slid a printed packet across the desk. I glanced down, and my breath caught in my throat. It was an anonymous formal complaint letter addressed to the firm’s executive board, complete with printed screenshots of the local news article covering Lena’s arrest.
The letter painted a malicious, twisted picture: it claimed that I was an unstable, litigious employee involved in violent domestic criminal activity, that I was currently facing CPS investigations, and that keeping me on staff exposed the firm to severe reputational risk and liability.
“They signed it ‘Concerned Family Stakeholders,’” Arthur explained quietly. “Obviously, HR had to look into it. Given your stellar work history here, I personally know this is retaliatory trash. But corporate compliance requires us to follow protocol when public legal scandals hit our personnel.”
“Arthur, this is completely fabricated garbage,” I said, my voice shaking with a mix of fury and panic. “My family is trying to destroy my life because I pressed charges against my sister for assaulting my five-year-old son with chemical spray! I am the victim here, not the perpetrator!”
“I know that, Anna. Detective Marlowe actually called our legal department an hour ago to vouch for you,” Arthur said, offering a reassuring smile. “He cleared up the CPS rumor immediately—confirmed you are the sole protective parent and the victim of a domestic crime. The board reviewed Marlowe’s statement and dismissed the complaint entirely.”
I exhaled a breath I felt like I’d been holding for a century. “Thank God. I need this job, Arthur. Especially now.”
“I know you do,” Arthur said, leaning forward. “In fact, the board wants to protect you. We’re putting out an internal memo supporting our staff against external harassment, and I’m assigning you to lead the new Metro Transit Station design project—a promotion with a nice pay bump. Consider it a cushion for whatever your toxic family throws at you next.”
I walked out of Arthur’s office walking on air. Not only had my parents’ sabotage attempt failed miserably, but it had backfired into a career advancement.
That afternoon, I called Detective Marlowe to update him on my father’s desperate stunt.
“They’re escalating,” Marlowe warned over the phone, his voice laced with professional concern. “With Lena’s preliminary hearing coming up on Monday, your parents are panicking. They know she’s facing serious prison time. I’m going to have a patrol car do random drive-bys near your house this weekend just to be safe.”
“Thank you, Owen—Detective Marlowe,” I corrected myself quickly, though our casual phone chats had grown increasingly warm over the past week.
“Owen is fine, Anna,” he chuckled softly on the other end. “Outside of official case files, Owen is just fine.”
May you like
That weekend passed in a peaceful blur. Eli’s eye was healing wonderfully, the redness completely gone, though he still proudly wore his pirate patch just for fun. We baked cookies, watched movies, and laughed without walking on eggshells for the first time in our lives.
Little did we know, the storm was gathering for a catastrophic final showdown in a courtroom downtown.
