Chapter 5 - The Reclamation of Sterling Global
The federal holding facility in lower Manhattan was a place stripped of all luxury. There were no white Carrara marble floors here, no gold-sequined gowns, and no crystal chandeliers. The walls were a dull, institutional gray, and the only sound was the heavy, rhythmic clicking of the guards' boots against the linoleum.
Victoria Vance sat behind the reinforced Plexiglas partition of the visitor’s cell, her Chanel suit wrinkled, her hair unwashed and hanging loose around her pale face. The sapphire cocktail ring was gone, confiscated by the processing officers along with her shoelaces and her dignity.
The door to the visitor’s gallery opened, and Julian walked in, followed by Maria. They sat down on the metal stools across from her, their expressions as cold and unyielding as the stone walls around them.
"Julian, please," Victoria whispered, her hands pressing against the thick glass, her voice cracked with a frantic, desperate terror. "You have to help me. My father... he was the one who designed the entire structure. He told me that if we didn't take the Sterling shares, your mother was going to destroy Vance Logistics. I didn't want to hurt her! Dr. Thorne told me the toxin would only cause a temporary illness—something to keep her away from the board meeting!"
"You let my daughter see you, Victoria," Julian said, his voice dropping into a low, venomous register that made her flinch. "You stood in my home, accepted my ring, kissed my child, and then you poured a lethal paralytic into my mother’s tea. You didn't care if she lived or died, as long as you got the Rotterdam fund."
"I loved you, Julian!" she cried, her tears smudging the remaining makeup under her eyes.
"No, Victoria. You loved the ledger," Maria spoke up, her voice calm but carrying a weight that cut through Victoria’s hysteria. She reached into her bag and pressed a printed document against the glass. It was a copy of the pre-nuptial agreement, but with a secondary addendum attached to the back. "This is the document you tried to delete from the master terminal on Tuesday night. The one that transferred fifty percent of the Vance Logistics maritime fleet to an offshore account under your name the moment the Sterling merger was finalized."
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. She looked at Maria, her eyes wide with a sudden, hateful realization. "You... you were spying on me from the beginning."
"I wasn't spying on you, Miss Vance. I was cleaning up your mess," Maria said coldly. "I knew what your father did to my family twenty years ago. I knew he used the same tactics—the same forced bankruptcies, the same poisoned contracts. But my father didn't have the Sterling ledger. I do."
The door behind Julian opened, and a federal marshal stepped into the cubicle. "Time is up, Mr. Sterling. The district attorney is ready to finalize the indictment paperwork."
Julian stood up, not looking at Victoria as she began to scream against the glass, her hands clawing at the partition as the guards moved in to pull her back toward her cell. He turned toward the exit, his hand coming down gently on Maria’s shoulder as they stepped out into the bright, freezing afternoon sun of Manhattan.
May you like
"Where to now, Mr. Julian?" Maria asked, pulling her wool coat tightly around her.
"To the hospital, Maria," Julian said, his face finally softening as he looked toward the uptown grid. "My mother woke up twenty minutes ago. And she’s ready to sign the reclamation orders."
