Chapter 10 - The Ambush at Work
Realizing that legal intimidation and theatrical hospital stunts were failing miserably, Julian decided to take his campaign of harassment to the court of public opinion. He couldn't come within five hundred feet of my house or the pediatrician’s office, but he knew exactly where my sister Maya worked as a senior marketing director.
On Monday afternoon, Maya was walking out of her downtown office building toward her car when Julian stepped out from behind a concrete pillar in the parking garage, blocking her path. He looked frantic, his eyes wide and wild, wearing the same wrinkled suit he had been wearing for days.
“Maya! Wait! You have to talk to her!” Julian pleaded, grabbing the handle of Maya’s car door before she could slide inside. “She’s completely lost her mind! Victoria Vance is trying to ruin my life! They froze my joint checking account this morning!”
Maya didn't flinch. She took a step back, pulling her pepper spray canister from her purse and leveling it directly at his eyes. “Step away from my vehicle right now, Julian, or I will empty this entire can into your face and let the security guards sort you out.”
“You’re all turning on me over soup!” Julian screamed, his facade of the calm, rational victim completely shattering as his temper flared. “My mother raised me alone! She sacrificed everything for me! When she asked for a little extra nutrition to help her joints, I did what any loyal son would do! Clara is a selfish, possessive mother who wants to isolate my son from his real family!”
“Your son lost weight after major surgery because you literally emptied his freezer stash!” Maya barked back, refusing to back down an inch. “You told your mother a toddler with a reconstructed bowel could eat canned sodium bombs! You are not a loyal son, Julian—you are a spineless, pathetic mama’s boy who abused your own child to keep an old woman from throwing a tantrum!”
May you like
Julian’s face turned scarlet. He lunged forward, raising his hand as if to grab Maya’s shoulder, but she didn't hesitate. She pressed the trigger on her canister, sending a direct stream of orange oleoresin capsicum spray right across his eyes and nose.
Julian shrieked, stumbling backward into the concrete pillar, clutching his face as he dropped to his knees, coughing and wailing in agony. Maya calmly got into her car, locked the doors, called 911 to report an assault by a restrained individual, and drove away, leaving him weeping on the cold garage floor.
