Chapter 5 - The Handcuffs
Ryan scrambled backward on the floor, his eyes wide with absolute panic as the cold steel handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
"You can't arrest me! I'm the Vice President of Sterling Development!" Ryan screamed, thrashing against the officers as they pulled him up by his vest. "Claire! Tell them to stop! You're destroying my reputation!"
"You destroyed yourself, Ryan," Claire’s mother said quietly, holding her daughter's hand. "You thought you were marrying a quiet heiress you could walk over. You forgot who raised her."
The troopers pushed Ryan out of the presidential suite into the main corridor.
Nurses, doctors, and wealthy patients lined the hallway, taking out their phones to record the humiliating sight of Ryan Sterling being marched through the hospital in chains, his hair disheveled and his cheek still stamped with a bright red slap mark.
Down in the lobby, press reporters—who had been tipped off about the corporate fraud investigation—were already gathering behind the glass doors, their camera flashes stroking the snow-dusted street outside.
As Ryan was shoved into the back seat of the police cruiser, he looked up through the glass at the top-floor balcony of St. Catherine’s.
Standing on the private terrace in the crisp morning air was Claire’s father, speaking calmly on his cell phone to the District Attorney's office.
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Ryan’s high-flying corporate lifestyle, his secret apartment, his luxury vehicles, and his executive title vanished in a single morning.
👉 Click to continue reading and see how Vanessa tried to save herself in court.
