Chapter 18 - The Swiss Tribunal
The bitter chill of the Geneva midnight air hit my lungs like a bucket of ice water as we dragged ourselves out of the storm-drain grate along the Quai de l'Île.
Julian slammed the heavy iron grate back into place, his jacket soaked in canal water and soot. Evelyn collapsed against a stone lamppost, coughing violently, shivering in her ruined evening dress. Therese, bleeding slightly from a scrape on her cheek, held the leather-bound ledger wrapped tightly inside her waterproof coat.
“Julian,” I panted, wiping grime and river water from my eyes, “how much time do we have?”
Julian checked his encrypted tactical watch, his breath billowing in white clouds. “The Swiss Federal Banking Commission convenes its emergency sovereign session at eight o'clock tomorrow morning at the Palais de Justice. Conrad Vance's arrest has triggered a mandatory forty-eight-hour freeze on all Montague holdings. If Victoria presents her forged forty-percent legacy proxy before we unseal David’s original lineage registry, the tribunal will grant her temporary custodianship.”
“And temporary custodianship in Switzerland means she can liquidate the accounts into Panamanian shell companies before noon,” Therese added grimly.
“Where is David?” I asked, my voice cracking with raw emotion. “Where did Julian’s team hide my father?”
“He is under protective custody at the British Consulate in Bern,” Julian replied, looking directly into my eyes with unwavering loyalty. “He refused to leave Switzerland until he knew you were safe. He told me that if you ever learned the truth about Victoria, I was to give you this.”
Julian reached inside his tactical vest and pulled out a small, worn silver locket. He placed it in my palm.
I opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a tiny, faded photograph of David as a young man, holding an infant wrapped in a pink blanket. But next to him was not Victoria. It was Eleanor. Behind them sat a modest American porch, bathed in golden afternoon sunlight. Written inside the silver lid in David's delicate, precise handwriting were four words:
*Chosen by love, forever.*
A tear slipped down my face, cutting through the grime on my skin. The Vance family thought blood was an unbreakable chain that bound people to greed and ruthlessness. They were wrong. Family was not about whose DNA ran through your veins; it was about who stood beside you when the world burned to the ground.
I snapped the locket shut and looked up. The lights of the Geneva financial district glittered across the dark surface of Lake Geneva.
“Therese,” I said, my voice hardening into pure steel. “Call the chairman of the Federal Tribunal. Tell him the sole sovereign heir of David Montague is coming to claim her seat. And bring Evelyn.”
May you like
Evelyn flinched. “Me? Claire, please, I have nothing left—”
“You have a voice,” I interrupted coldly. “And tomorrow morning, you are going to tell the world exactly who Victoria Vance is.”