Chapter 13 - The Shattered Throne
Victor Sterling suddenly lunged toward the table, desperately reaching for the dossier, but one of the tactical operatives stepped forward, pressing the barrel of an automatic sidearm directly against the center of Victor's forehead.
Victor froze, his knees buckling, his breath whistling through his nose in sheer terror.
"Sit down, Victor," Julian commanded from the doorway. The patriarch hadn't raised his voice, yet the sheer weight of authority in his tone pinned every Sterling in their seat. "You have played the petty conqueror in my absence. You sat at my table, drank my cellar's vintage, and allowed your pathetic offspring to treat my bloodline as scullery maids."
Julian walked forward, his cane clicking against the floor until he stood before Beatrice. He towered over the trembling woman.
"Arthur Vance," Julian said without looking away from Beatrice.
"Yes, Mr. Cross?" Vance stepped into the room, holding a secure satellite tablet displaying live legal dockets.
"Execute Protocol Terminus," Julian ordered smoothly. "Every asset bearing the Sterling name—commercial, residential, liquid, and offshore—is to be frozen under the emergency provisions of the Cross-Sterling Master Covenant. Since the Sterling family has engaged in corporate espionage, grand larceny, and attempted capital murder, their indemnity clause is null and void."
"You can't do that!" Beatrice screamed, her facade of aristocratic composure disintegrating into rabid hysteria. "We are partners! Our family built this city alongside yours! If you ruin us, the markets will collapse! Thousands of jobs will be lost!"
"The jobs will remain, Beatrice," Eleanor interjected calmly, crossing her arms. "Because the Cross Empire will absorb every subsidiary of Sterling Holdings for the nominal sum of one dollar per company, as stipulated under the breach-of-faith clauses in our original 1994 charter. By sunrise tomorrow, the Sterling name will not exist on Wall Street."
Arthur Vance tapped the screen. A series of chimes sounded from the phones of every Sterling in the room.
One by one, the twenty guests pulled out their devices.
"My card... it’s declined," one of the cousins gasped, staring at a banking notification.
"Dad, the trust fund account... the balance is zero!" another wailed.
"My townhouse in Manhattan... there's an immediate seizure notice from the sheriff’s office!"
The room dissolved into pandemonium. Wealthy, smug socialites who had spent the evening laughing at Emily as she scrubbed grease from roasting pans were suddenly reduced to penniless paupers in the span of sixty seconds. Women were sobbing into their fur coats; men were shouting frantically at blank banking screens.
Beatrice collapsed back onto the sofa, clutching her chest, her breathing shallow and ragged. "You... you monsters... you planned this..."
"No, Beatrice," I said, stepping up beside my mother and sister. "You planned this when you thought Emily had no one left to protect her. You thought an orphan sister with a deployed brother was an easy mark. You forgot that blood doesn't wash away with your lies."
Richard fell to his knees in front of Emily, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks, clawing at the hem of her ruined apron. "Emily! Please! We took vows! For better or for worse! Talk to your grandfather! Don't let them throw me in prison! I love you, Emily, you know I love you!"
Emily looked down at him. There was no hatred in her face—only a profound, devastating emptiness that hurt far worse than anger.
"You never loved me, Richard," Emily whispered. "You loved the silence you thought you could force me into."
She reached up to her left hand. The three-carat diamond ring—purchased with Cross family money that Richard had embezzled—slid off her bruised finger.
May you like
With a flick of her wrist, Emily dropped the diamond ring straight into Beatrice Sterling’s half-empty glass of vintage red wine.
***