Chapter 12 - The Deposition
Z
The high of the gala lasted exactly seventy-two hours. On Wednesday morning, reality crashed through the polished glass doors of Kane & Alvarez in the form of a legal summons.
I was scheduled for a deposition.
Marcus's lawyers had aggressively fast-tracked the discovery phase of their lawsuit, seeking to depose me to prove that I had conspired with Adrian to steal intellectual property. It was a thinly veiled attempt to intimidate me, to put me in a room with hostile lawyers and break my composure on the record.
The deposition took place in a sterile, windowless conference room at the opposing counsel’s law firm in Midtown. I sat at a long mahogany table, my hands folded neatly in my lap, trying to project a calm I absolutely did not feel. Adrian sat to my right, his presence a silent, terrifying anchor. Our lead litigator, a shark named Harrison, sat to my left.
Across from us sat Marcus Vance and his lead attorney, a sharp-featured woman named Ms. Sterling who looked like she enjoyed foreclosing on orphanages for sport.
"State your name for the record," the court reporter droned.
"Sofia Alvarez," I replied, my voice steady.
For the first two hours, Ms. Sterling peppered me with agonizingly tedious questions about file permissions, server access logs, and the exact timestamps of creative briefs. I answered truthfully and concisely, exactly as Harrison had prepped me. Marcus sat beside her, smirking, occasionally whispering in her ear.
Then, the trap was sprung.
"Ms. Alvarez," Ms. Sterling said, leaning forward and folding her hands. "Let's discuss the Bellamy Hotels campaign. The core concept was 'memory,' correct?"
"Yes," I answered.
"A concept Mr. Vance claims he briefed to your department in Q2. Yet, you maintain that you and your team generated this concept independently."
"That is correct. As the timestamped emails provided in exhibit D prove, the concept was developed by my team independently."
Ms. Sterling smiled, a thin, bloodless stretching of her lips. "Is it not true, Ms. Alvarez, that your husband, the late Ethan Alvarez, was a photographer?"
My heart skipped a beat. A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. Beside me, I felt Adrian go completely still, his posture rigid.
"Objection," Harrison barked instantly. "Relevance. The plaintiff's late husband has absolutely no bearing on this corporate intellectual property dispute."
"I am establishing the source of the creative inspiration, counselor," Ms. Sterling fired back smoothly. "I will connect it."
"Answer the question, Ms. Alvarez," the mediator instructed.
"Yes. My husband was a photographer," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. The air in the room felt suffocating.
"And is it not true," Ms. Sterling continued, producing a stack of printed photographs from her briefcase and sliding them across the table, "that these are your late husband's photographs? Specifically, a collection titled Echoes of Empty Spaces, which focuses heavily on the theme of 'memory' attached to abandoned architecture?"
I looked down at the prints. They were Ethan's. The old warehouse he had shot for Adrian's firm years ago. The dusty light, the haunting shadows. It felt like a violation to see them here, weaponized on this sterile table.
"Yes. Those are his," I whispered.
"So," Ms. Sterling concluded triumphantly, looking around the room. "The brilliant 'memory' concept wasn't derived from independent brainstorming, nor was it a stroke of corporate genius. It was lifted directly from your late husband's artistic portfolio. You utilized his unpublished thematic concepts to save your failing presentation, and then, knowing Mr. Vance had outlined similar thematic elements in his Q2 brief, you conspired with Mr. Kane to steal the credit, secure the client, and launch a rival firm."
The accusation hung in the air, toxic and devastating. Marcus was grinning now, a look of absolute victory on his face. They were trying to prove that because my inspiration came from Ethan, it somehow belonged to the agency, or validated Marcus's vague brief. They were desecrating my husband's memory to win a lawsuit.
My vision blurred. A wave of intense, suffocating panic washed over me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I felt the familiar, crushing weight of grief threatening to pull me under.
Suddenly, a hand closed over mine under the table.
It was Adrian. His grip was fiercely tight, anchoring me to the present, pulling me back from the edge.
"We need a five-minute recess," Adrian said. His voice didn't just command the room; it dominated it. It was the voice of a man who could level cities.
"Mr. Kane, we are in the middle of—" Ms. Sterling began.
"I said," Adrian interrupted, his eyes locking onto hers with a lethal intensity that actually made her flinch, "we are taking a five-minute recess. Now."
Without waiting for permission, Adrian stood, pulling me up with him. He didn't let go of my hand as he led me out of the conference room and down the hall into an empty adjacent office, shutting and locking the door behind us.
The moment the door clicked, my composure shattered. I leaned against the heavy oak door, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes as dry sobs wracked my chest.
"They're using him, Adrian," I gasped, fighting for air. "They're using Ethan to prove I'm a fraud. They're going to twist his art into their dirty corporate theft narrative."
Adrian didn't speak immediately. He stepped close to me, gently pulling my hands away from my face. He framed my face with his large, warm hands, forcing me to look up into his eyes.
"Listen to me," he said, his voice a low, fierce rumble. "You are not a fraud. Ethan's art inspired you. That is what art is supposed to do. It is not corporate property. It is your heart. And Marcus Vance is a pathetic, desperate man who is trying to use your grief to break you because he knows he cannot beat you on merit."
"But what if they convince a jury?" I cried. "What if they take the company? What if they ruin everything we've built?"
Adrian’s thumbs gently wiped away a stray tear that had escaped my lashes. His expression was a mixture of profound tenderness and absolute, terrifying resolve.
"They will not touch this company. And they will not touch you," he promised, his voice vibrating with absolute certainty. "I am going to end this today. I am going to destroy him."
"How?" I whispered, lost in the storm of his eyes.
Adrian dropped his hands from my face, his demeanor shifting instantly back to the ruthless CEO. He pulled his phone from his inner jacket pocket and dialed a number.
May you like
"Because," Adrian said quietly, holding my gaze, "Marcus Vance forgot one crucial detail when he decided to drag Ethan Alvarez into this deposition."
He raised the phone to his ear. "Harrison. Bring Ms. Sterling and Mr. Vance back into the room. Tell them I am ready to issue a statement on the record." He hung up the phone and looked at me. "He forgot that I own the copyrights."
