Chapter 21 - The Prodigal Father
The figure trudged through the knee-deep snow, pulling down his fur-lined hood to reveal a face lined with deep exhaustion, frostbite nipping at his pale cheeks.
It was Arthur Sterling.
Julian stood frozen in the doorway for a fraction of a second, staring at his father in sheer disbelief. The man who had spent his entire life commanding boardrooms from a leather-backed throne in Manhattan was now wading through a Vermont blizzard like a desperate vagrant, his posture broken, his aura of invincibility completely shattered.
"Julian," Arthur gasped, his breath pluming into the freezing night air as he hauled himself up the porch steps and collapsed against the wooden railing. "Thank God... I thought I wouldn't make it off the county road."
Julian didn't reach out to help him up. He kept his hand firmly on the edge of the door, his eyes cold and distant. "What in God's name are you doing out here, Arthur? Are you completely insane?"
"Victoria... is she here?" Arthur breathed heavily, ignoring the question as he clutched his chest. "I tracked her phone using the family locator. She cleaned out the remaining subsidiary accounts before the board locked them down. She took everything, Julian. We have nothing left. The house in Greenwich is under foreclosure. The accounts are frozen."
Julian stared at his father with a chilling sense of profound pity. Not anger. Not hatred. Just the hollow realization that the mighty titan of Wall Street had always been nothing more than a frightened, fragile old man hiding behind a fortress of stolen wealth.
"She’s inside," Julian said flatly, stepping aside just enough to let the freezing old man stumble past him into the mudroom.
Arthur staggered into the warmth of the hallway, his knees buckling before he managed to grab onto the wooden bench. Victoria appeared from the living room, her eyes widening in horror and fury as she saw her father standing there, looking like a ghost dragged up from the grave.
"You!" Victoria shrieked, scrambling to her feet. "You ruined everything! If you hadn't let the board push you out, none of this would have happened!"
"Me?" Arthur laughed—a harsh, broken sound that ended in a rattling cough. "I built this empire while you spent your life playing society games and treating everyone around you like garbage! You stole from the primary reserves, Victoria! You signed our death warrant!"
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"Enough," Julian's voice boomed through the hallway, silencing them both instantly. The sheer weight of his command stopped the bickering dead in its tracks. He looked at the two of them—the father who had broken him, and the sister who had tried to destroy him—standing in his home, stripped of every ounce of power they once held.
"You are both under my roof because of a storm," Julian said coldly. "Tomorrow morning, when the plows clear the road, you are leaving. And you are never coming back."
