Chapter 14 - GHOSTS IN THE LEDGER
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Victoria stopped in the middle of the windswept parking lot of Rikers Island. The salt air coming off the East River was freezing, whipping her hair across her face.
Her father had been dead for four years. Or so the world believed.
She tore the black envelope open with steady fingers. Inside was a single piece of aged parchment and a brass safety deposit key stamped with the number 7714 - Credit Suisse, Zurich.
The note was short, written in the sharp, sloping cursive she knew better than her own signature:
Vicky,
If you are reading this, Julian has already played his hand, and you have already won. I never trusted that boy. But Julian was never the wolf at the door. He was just the dog on the leash. Check the Zurich vault before you execute the privatization of Vance Enterprises. The board members you fired this morning weren't working for Julian. They were working for him.
— D.V.
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. Her knuckles turned white around the brass key.
"Marcus," she said, her voice dropping to an icy tone that sent a shiver down the veteran lawyer’s spine. "Where is the Gulfstream right now?"
"Teterboro Airport. Fueled and ready on thirty minutes' notice."
"Have the pilot file a flight plan for Zurich immediately," she ordered, turning toward the armored Suburban. "We're leaving tonight."
"Victoria, wait," Marcus hurried after her, catching her arm. "What does the letter say? Who is 'him'?"
Victoria pulled her arm away gently, her eyes narrowing into dangerous, calculating slits. "My father didn't die of a heart attack in Geneva, Marcus. And this whole corporate war was never about my money."
She climbed into the back of the Suburban and pulled the door shut.
Ten minutes later, the vehicle merged onto the Grand Central Parkway, heading toward New Jersey at eighty miles per hour.
Victoria opened her laptop, entered her highest-level biometric clearance, and pulled up the encrypted Vance family archives from twenty years ago. She navigated to the sealed subsidiary files—the ones her father had locked away before his supposed demise.
At the very bottom of the index, a single name was highlighted in red:
ARTHUR STERLING.
Thomas Sterling’s father. The billionaire industrialist who supposedly vanished in a private plane crash over the Alps in 2006.
Victoria stared at the screen as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together with terrifying clarity. Julian wasn't the mastermind. Thomas Sterling wasn't the mastermind. They were pawns in a generational blood feud designed to bleed the Vance empire dry from the inside out.
Her phone buzzed. A text from the private pilot at Teterboro:
Flight cleared for takeoff at 11:45 PM. Destination: Zurich International.
Victoria shut the laptop screen with a sharp snap.
May you like
"They thought they could bury me," she whispered into the dark interior of the car. "Now it’s my turn to dig the graves."
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