Chapter 5 - Bloodlines and Blackmail
By midnight, the city was covered in four inches of fresh, pristine snow, but inside the executive suite of Vance-Sterling Tower on Lexington Avenue, the air was thick with the scent of expensive bourbon and mounting dread.
Julian Vance stood behind an antique mahogany desk that had once belonged to Arthur Sterling. At sixty-four, Julian maintained the disciplined posture of a former military officer, his silver hair immaculately brushed back, his three-piece charcoal suit pristine. In his right hand, he leaned lightly upon his signature silver-headed cane, its handle cast in the shape of a snarling wolf.
Across the desk, a private investigator named Frank Gallagher stood with a tablet in his gloved hands.
"Tell me again," Julian said, his voice dangerously soft, "why Théo Lindqvist’s salon was shut down for three hours this morning."
"Adrian Kane," Gallagher said, clearing his throat nervously. "Kane rolled in around nine. He was bleeding from a scuffle down on Suffolk Street—looks like the boys from the Moretti crew tried to take him out and botched it. But he didn't go to a clinic. He brought in a vagrant."
Julian sneered, pouring two fingers of twenty-year-old scotch into a crystal tumbler. "Adrian Kane is a violent peasant who inherited docks he doesn't have the breeding to operate. If he wants to play savior to the homeless, let him. Why should I care about his PR stunts?"
"Because of how much he paid, Mr. Vance," Gallagher said, stepping forward to lay the tablet on the desk. "Ninety thousand dollars in cash. He cleared the floor. Tripled the tips for the entire staff. And Lindqvist’s assistant, Clara... she has a sister who owes thirty grand to a loan shark in Queens. My guys reached out to the sister."
Julian froze, the glass halfway to his lips. "And?"
"The vagrant had an object braided into her hair," Gallagher whispered, his eyes darting to the heavy oak doors of the office as if someone might be listening. "A ring, Mr. Vance. Platinum. The Sterling crest. Arthur Sterling's personal signet."
The crystal tumbler slipped from Julian Vance's fingers.
It hit the Persian rug with a muted, wet thud, amber liquid soaking into the antique wool. Julian didn't look down at the spill. His face, usually a mask of aristocratic composure, drained of all color until he looked like a corpse in a three-piece suit.
"That's impossible," Julian hissed. "Arthur died in the master bedroom. Eleanor died in the east wing. And the girl was locked in the third-floor nursery. The accelerant was military-grade. Nothing survived that heat."
"The girl was fourteen, Julian," Gallagher said, dropping the honorific in his panic. "She was small. There was a laundry chute that ran from the nursery linen closet directly down to the old coal cellar behind the boilers. If she got into that chute before the floor collapsed..."
Julian’s hand gripped the wolf-head handle of his cane so tightly that his tendons stood out like cords.
Ten years.
Ten years of enjoying the unmitigated glory of being the undisputed master of Sterling Maritime. Ten years of dining with governors, funding university wings, and building an empire that bore his name alongside Arthur's.
If Vivienne Sterling was alive, every document he had signed since Arthur’s death was fraudulent. Every share of stock he had liquidated was theft. The entire empire did not belong to him—it belonged to a ghost.
"Where is she?" Julian asked, his voice shaking with a cold, desperate venom.
"Kane took her to his fortress in Tribeca," Gallagher replied. "You know Kane's setup down there. It’s an old Federal Reserve branch he renovated. It has blast doors, independent power generators, and twenty armed ex-military operators on rotation. We can't hit it from the outside without turning lower Manhattan into a warzone. The feds would be involved within ten minutes."
Julian closed his eyes, his chest heaving as he fought for control. When he opened them, the aristocratic veneer had returned, cold and lethal.
"Then we don't hit the building," Julian said, his lips curling into a cruel, razor-thin smile. "Tomorrow night is the Metropolitan Museum’s Winter Benefactors Gala. Kane sits on the board of the maritime conservancy; he bought his seat three years ago to pretend he's legitimate. He won't miss it. And if he has Arthur's daughter, he will want to flaunt his prize."
Julian leaned over the desk, his knuckles resting on the dark mahogany.
May you like
"Call the Moretti brothers. Tell them I will forgive the twelve million dollars they owe our shipping terminals. But tomorrow night, when Adrian Kane leaves Tribeca, I want Manhattan’s streets cleared. I want the girl dead. And I want Kane’s head delivered to me in a sack."
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