Hope lit up again in his eyes.
“We really have to fix this,” she said, “but I can’t mix personal and business.”
“Sure, sure. Let’s finish the business matter first,” he agreed.
“I’ve already seen the result of your audit,” Zelica said.
“And?” he asked anxiously.
“We need to talk seriously. Tomorrow in my office at 10:00 a.m. Bring your lawyer if necessary. Once that is over, then we can talk about us.”
She stood up, leaving him with a bottle of expensive wine and a sly smile, thinking he had just won.
At 10:00 a.m. the next morning, in the meeting room of the mansion, Quacy arrived alone, without a lawyer. He brought another bouquet of roses. He was very confident. He thought this meeting was just a formality before he and Zelica reconciled.
He entered the room. The atmosphere was far from romantic.
Zelica was already seated in the head chair. Seek was standing beside her. On the long mahogany table, there were no coffee cups, but stacks of thick legal documents.
“Zel, babe,” Quacy greeted, trying to break the ice with the flowers.
“Sit down, Quacy,” Zelica said, her voice cutting.
He sat. His smile faltered.
“Let’s get to the point,” she said. “Mr. Seek.”
Seek stepped forward, placing a binder of documents in front of him.
“Mr. Quacy, this is the list of debts of Quacy Constructions, Inc.,” Seek said. “To Garcia Aggregates, a total of $100,000. To Bolt Hardware, $50,000. To Iberian Machinery, $200,000, and so on. The total verified debt with twelve suppliers is $500,000.”
Quacy’s face paled.
“What does this mean? I’m negotiating with them.”
“They no longer need negotiation,” Zelica interrupted. “Because everyone has been paid in full.”
He looked at her, confused.
“Paid by whom?”
Zelica pointed to herself.
“By me.”
Seek pushed a second binder of documents toward him.
“Through three investment companies affiliated with Okafor Legacy Holdings LLC, we have acquired or bought all those outstanding invoices. Copies of the debt assignment deeds are in front of you.”
Quacy opened the first sheet. His heart seemed to stop.
“In other words, Mr. Quacy,” Zelica leaned in, looking directly into the eyes of the man who had destroyed her, “your company no longer owes anything to those small merchants.”
She paused, letting the silence fill the room.
“Your company now owes me.”
“Me?”
He couldn’t breathe.
“I can pay. I can pay in installments.”
“Oh, of course,” Zelica said. “But I’m not interested in doing business with you, and I’m not interested in getting back with you. I want my money back.”
She slapped the documents in front of him.
“According to the assignment clause, this debt is due now. You have twenty-four hours to liquidate those five hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
“Twenty-four hours? That’s impossible. No one has that much cash!” he shouted, finally panicking.
“I do,” Zelica replied coldly.
“You—you set a trap for me.”
“A trap?” She stood up. “I am only claiming what is my right, just like you kept all my rights before. If in twenty-four hours you cannot pay…”
She put a third binder of documents on the stack.
“Our legal team will immediately register the lien on that penthouse in the Sovereign, on your office, and on all your heavy machinery. Good morning, Mr. Quacy.”
Twenty-four hours.
He never knew how short twenty-four hours were.
After leaving Zelica’s mansion, he didn’t go back to the apartment. He panicked. He spent the first hour driving aimlessly, cursing Zelica, Seek, and the whole world.
The second hour, he started calling.
He called his bank manager.
“I need a loan of $500,000. The collateral is my project in South Georgia.”
The bank manager laughed on the other end of the phone.
“Quacy, don’t joke. You don’t have that project secured yet. Besides, your credit limit is already tapped out to finance… well, you know.”
He hung up abruptly.
From the third to the tenth hour, he spent calling all his business contacts. Every friend he had invited for expensive wine, every small official he had tipped.
The answer was the same:
“Oof, tough, man.”
Or,
“Sorry, I’m out of town.”
Or they simply didn’t pick up the phone.
The news of his downfall, which somehow started at the mansion meeting, spread faster than fire.
Hour eleven. In his desperation, he returned to the penthouse.
Aniya was trying on a new dress she had just bought that afternoon.
“How does it look, babe? Nice, right?”
“Sell it,” he shouted.
“What?”
“Sell it all,” he yelled, eyes red. “Sell your bags. Sell your jewelry. We are bankrupt.”
Aniya’s face paled.
“These… these are gifts, not investments. Are you crazy?”
“Zelica set a trap for me,” he raved. “That snake woman bought my debts. She gave us twenty-four hours to pay half a million dollars.”
Aniya didn’t care about the debt. She only heard one thing: the money ran out.
At 10:00 a.m. sharp the next day, exactly twenty-four hours later, the doorbell of his penthouse rang.
He hadn’t slept all night. He opened the door, hoping it was Zelica coming to cancel her threat after softening up.
No.
In front of the door was Seek, calm as a statue. Behind him, two well-dressed lawyers and a man in an official uniform holding a thick folder—the sheriff’s deputy.
“Your time is up, Mr. Quacy,” Seek said flatly.
“Wait, I need time—”
“Time is a luxury you didn’t give Zelica,” Seek interrupted.
He took a step forward.
“According to the order from the Fulton County Superior Court, we are here to execute the lien on this asset.”
The deputy began putting seizure stickers on the wall of the apartment foyer.
“No, this is my house!” Quacy shouted.
“Technically, it is the collateral for your debt to my client,” the lawyer corrected. “You and this young lady”—he looked at Aniya with disdain—“are required to vacate these premises in one hour. Take your essential personal effects.”
One hour later, the scene in the lobby of the Sovereign turned into a spectacle.
Quacy, the same man who ten years ago felt like the king of the place, was escorted out by security guards—the same guards who had thrown Zelica out before.
Aniya followed him, crying hysterically, dragging two suitcases full of her designer bags.
He wasn’t just bankrupt on paper. Now he was literally on the street, back at the ground zero he had created for Zelica, on the hot sidewalk in front of the lobby.
The real drama had just begun.
“This is all your fault!” Aniya shrieked, hitting his chest. “You said you were rich. You said you were great. Turns out you’re just a scammer!”
He, who had already lost everything, unloaded his remaining anger on the only target left.
“My fault? Your fault! Who asked for Birkin bags every week? Who asked for vacations in Turks? You made me spend, parasite. Parasite!”
Aniya’s jaw dropped. Their fight was so loud it became a public spectacle. They didn’t realize that across the street, someone was recording with their phone.
“I didn’t sign up for this!” Aniya shrieked. “I’m done.”
She dragged her suitcase, trying to hail a cab.
“Where are you going? You won’t survive without me,” he mocked.
“You’ll see.”
Aniya went to a luxury hotel, trying to book a room with the unlimited credit card he’d given her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Declined,” the receptionist said coldly.
She tried another card. Declined. All declined.
Either he had blocked everything, or the bank had.
Aniya panicked. She called her high-society friends.
“Girl, I have a problem. Can you lend me—”
The phone cut off.
She called another.
“Hello, I have bad signal—”
Phone turned off.
She didn’t know. Zelica, through her new network, didn’t need to do anything. Seek just had to leak Quacy’s audit report to a few key people.
The news that he was a scammer—and that Aniya, the side chick, was linked to a bankrupt scammer—spread through all the group chats of Atlanta’s elite. She was toxic. No one wanted to associate with her.
That night, the recording of her fight with him in front of the building went viral on local gossip blogs. Her beautiful face was now associated with bankruptcy and cheap drama. Her modeling career was finished. The doors of the high-class world closed.
Aniya, who once felt on top of the world, now had to sell her authentic bags—and some fakes she just discovered he’d given her—one by one just to survive, back to the obscurity she hated so much.
