Chapter 4 - Locked OutOutside the East Gate, the reality of what had just transpired was beginning to settle over Arthur Mercer like a physical weight.
He stood frozen on the marble steps, his face mottled with a dangerous mix of public humiliation, incandescent rage, and paralyzing confusion. The Secret Service agent who had been watching him struggle with his VIP ticket moments earlier now regarded him with thinly veiled amusement.
"Sir," the guard said, stepping forward and tapping the edge of Arthur’s digital donor pass. "You're blocking the security checkpoint. Are you entering the grounds, or are you stepping aside for the next guest?"
"Do you... do you know who I am?" Arthur sputtered, his voice cracking with unaccustomed vulnerability. He pointed a trembling, diamond-ringed finger toward the oak doors that had just swallowed me whole. "That woman... that officer who just walked in with the general... she’s... she’s my daughter!"
The guard didn't blink. He looked at Arthur’s red, sweating face, then down at the electronic badge scanner.
"Unless your daughter is Colonel Katherine Mercer, Director of Strategic Defense Acquisitions for the Department of Defense, I suggest you step through the scanner or move along, Mr. Mercer," the guard replied flatly. "Passes don't grant backstage clearance for family reunions."
Evelyn rushed forward, her pearls clicking frantically against one another as she grabbed Arthur’s arm. "Arthur, stop it! You're making a scene! Everyone is looking at us!"
She was right. Half a dozen wealthy donors and political journalists standing in the queue were whispering behind their hands, staring openly at the billionaire CEO of Mercer Defense Tech having a very public, very undignified meltdown on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue.
"She's a sentry," Arthur muttered, shaking his head in wild denial, refusing to accept the visual evidence of his own eyes. "She’s a glorified gate guard. I cut her off! I stripped her of her inheritance! She has nothing without my permission!"
"Dad," Trevor chimed in, his voice cracking with teenage whininess despite being thirty-four years old. "My phone is buzzing. The stock market desk just sent an emergency alert. Mercer Defense Tech shares are dropping. Rumors are spreading through the Bloomberg terminal that the Pentagon is about to cancel our billion-dollar drone contract."
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Arthur froze. All the color that had rushed to his face seconds before drained away instantly, leaving him looking hollow, old, and terribly fragile.
He looked back at the White House doors—doors that were now locked tight against him, guarded by men with automatic weapons, shielding the daughter he had cast away two decades ago.
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