Chapter 20 - The Blueprint of Vengeance
Before we boarded the private charter flight to Maine, there was one piece of unfinished business in New York.
At 10:00 AM, the emergency meeting of the Grand Plaza Development Consortium convened in the penthouse boardroom of the Financial Center. Richard Montgomery sat at the head of the table, surrounded by twelve hostile board members, their faces grim, their pens poised to sign a declaration of contract termination against Vance & Sterling Architects.
"As the acting senior trustee of Montgomery Holdings," Richard announced into the microphone, addressing the stenographer, "I move to dissolve the partnership with Claire Vance on the grounds of gross project sabotage, corporate espionage, and breach of fiduciary trust."
"Seconded," piped up his cousin, Harold.
"The motion is carried," Richard smirked, raising his fountain pen. "Notify the city council that the Grand Plaza project is suspended indefinitely pending the demolition of the foundation—"
The heavy oak double doors of the boardroom swung open with an authoritative crash.
I walked in first, wearing a tailored midnight-blue power suit, my heels clicking like metronome beats of impending doom against the marble floor. Behind me walked Julian, flanked by the Chief of the New York State Attorney General’s Corporate Fraud Division and three armed federal marshals.
Richard jumped to his feet, knocking his leather chair backward. "Julian! What is the meaning of this circus? You have no standing here!"
"Actually, Uncle Richard, he has every standing," I said calmly, stepping up to the center of the table.
I unrolled an oversized architectural master plan, slapping it down across their legal documents.
It wasn't Julian's commercial design. It was the original 1974 blueprint recovered from the underground bunker, completely updated, digitized, and re-engineered with modern sustainable glass and titanium. But at the apex of the tower, instead of the Montgomery corporate logo, the crown of the building formed an open-air public amphitheater and memorial garden shaped like an eternal flame.
"This is the Vance Memorial Tower," I announced, my voice echoing off the glass walls. "And this morning at 8:30 AM, the City of New York officially designated the entire excavation site as a State Historical Landmark under the Heritage Protection Act."
Richard turned white. "You can’t do that! That land belongs to Montgomery Holdings!"
"No, Richard, it belongs to the sovereign trust," Julian interjected, his voice cutting through the panic like a broadsword. "A trust which Arthur Montgomery attempted to defraud fifty years ago through illegal wire transfers to Victoria Vance. The Attorney General’s office has just unsealed an indictment against Montgomery Holdings for five decades of tax evasion, fraudulent land seizure, and conspiracy."
Julian tossed a blue-backed federal subpoena directly onto Richard’s chest.
"Your assets are frozen as of sixty seconds ago," Julian said coldly. "The board is disbanded by federal order. And if you ever show your face near Claire Vance or her construction site again, the marshals won't just escort you out—they’ll put you in the same cell block as her mother."
Richard collapsed back onto his chair, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. The other board members began frantically grabbing their briefcases, trying to distance themselves from the radioactive ruin of the Montgomery old guard.
Julian looked across the table at me, a subtle, victorious smile curving his lips.
May you like
"Phase one is complete," he whispered as we walked out into the corridor, leaving the vultures to tear each other apart.
"Now for the truth," I replied. "Get the plane ready."