From Ruin to Riches: He Stole My Inheritance, But I Found a Treasure He Could Only Dream Of!

The Confrontation at St. Jude's

The air outside St. Jude's Cathedral was a razor's edge, slicing through Armand Dubois's expensive vicuña coat. Snowflakes, like tiny shards of ice, danced in the amber glow of the gaslamps, settling on the black ice coating the cathedral steps. Armand, his aristocratic features set in a mask of disdain, watched Jack emerge from the churning, mist-shrouded canal. Jack, a man weathered by the sea, his face etched with hardship and his hands raw, hauled a heavy, brine-soaked chest. Armand, the arrogant yacht magnate, blew a plume of cigar smoke into the frigid air, a stark contrast to the freezing spray from the harbor. He flicked a crumpled hundred-dollar bill onto the slush near Jack's worn boots. "Two million in marina debt, and you crawl out of the freezing canal with empty pockets, beggar boy!" he sneered. Jack remained silent, his jaw a rigid line, a vein pulsing in his temple, his breath misting in the sub-zero air. Armand stepped forward, his polished Italian leather boot deliberately kicking Jack's dive fins. "Sign over your father's salvage permit right now, Jack," Armand threatened, his voice dripping with cruel arrogance, "or my private security throws you into the harbor!" The manicured fingers adjusted platinum cufflinks as Jack's scarred knuckles whitened around the chest's handles, his eyes narrowing into lethal slits.