Chapter 3 - The Unraveling
David Sterling was not a man who went down quietly. He tried to run. He sold his interest in the bistros, tried to move his assets to the Cayman Islands, and attempted to leverage his connections in the city council to keep the authorities off his back.
But he had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of his enemy. Vincent Kane didn't want his money. He wanted to set an example.
The audits led to the discovery of Sterling's involvement in a much larger racketeering scheme involving the city's food distribution channels. He had been skimming off the top of community food programs—the very programs meant to feed families like Sarah’s.
Vincent held a dinner at his private estate. He invited the city's elite, but he didn't seat them by social status. He seated them by the percentage of their business that relied on legitimate, fair-wage labor.
Sterling was invited, too. He arrived thinking it was a peace summit.
He found himself sitting across from a table of single mothers, all of whom had been victims of his "payroll glitches" over the years. Beside them sat the auditors. And at the head of the table, not at the dais, sat Rory, drawing stars on a fresh sheet of paper.
"Mr. Sterling," Vincent said, leaning back. "We have a presentation for you."
The screens on the wall began to play videos—not of crimes, but of lives. Clips of families struggling, clips of evictions, and finally, a clip of Rory walking past those seven guards.
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"You didn't just steal money," Vincent said, his voice echoing in the grand hall. "You stole time. You stole security. You stole the childhoods of children who had to learn to count stars instead of eating dinner."
Sterling looked around the room. There was no sympathy. There was only the cold, hard stare of a man who had realized he had become a liability to his own class.
