Chapter 26 - The Ghost of Zurich
Emily stared at the screen, her grip tightening on the edge of the mahogany desk. The woman on the other end—with those sharp emerald eyes and the unmistakable Sterling jawline—looked both like a stranger and a mirror image of the family she had fought so hard to escape.
"Who are you?" Emily demanded, her voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking in her veins. "If you're Julian Sterling’s kin, you should be talking to Arthur, not me. Arthur is the one who upheld his father's tyranny."
The woman let out a low, humorless laugh that sounded like shards of ice sliding across glass. "Arthur? That broken old man in his crumbling cliffside mansion is living on borrowed time and borrowed grace. I don't care about Arthur. Arthur was just a pawn in the family’s grand illusion. I care about the foundation of Sterling Holdings—the entire portfolio that your late husband, Richard, tried to leverage and burn to the ground."
Leaning closer to her webcam, the woman’s expression hardened into something predatory. "My name is Victoria Sterling. Julian Sterling was my grandfather. And for the past thirty years, my family has watched from the shadows as your side of the family squandered, corrupted, and nearly destroyed everything my grandfather built with his bare hands."
"If you wanted the empire back, why send mercenaries to my house?" Emily countered sharply, her eyes narrowing as she recalled the terrifying home invasion just twenty-four hours prior. "Are you the one running the Syndicate that backed Richard?"
Victoria raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing her features before vanishing behind her icy composure. "Mercenaries? Syndicate? Emily, please. Do you really think my family survives thirty years in exile by playing dirty street games with cartel brokers? We don't hire thugs to kick down doors at midnight. We buy the bank that holds the mortgage, and then we foreclose."
Emily processed the words rapidly. If Victoria didn't send Viktor Vance and his men, then who did? Who else had a stake in Sterling Holdings’ digital liquidation?
"Then who attacked my estate?" Emily asked, her tone shifting from defensive to investigative.
"Someone who wants the exact same thing I want," Victoria replied smoothly, tapping a pen against her desk. "The master decryption keys to the secondary offshore accounts that Richard hid before the Feds caught him. Those accounts don't just hold corporate money—they hold the financial proof of how the entire Sterling empire was originally funded through illegal arms smuggling in the 1970s. If the Department of Justice gets their hands on those files, every single asset belonging to the Sterling name—including my family's legal restitution fund—gets seized by the federal government forever."
Victoria paused, letting the heavy weight of her proposition settle over the digital divide. "So here is our proposal, Emily. You have the keys. I have the legal leverage to keep the Feds off your back and secure a permanent federal pardon for your past association with Richard. We join forces, wipe out the third-party syndicate trying to steal our inheritance, and take back what is rightfully ours."
"And what happens to Arthur?" Emily asked instantly.
May you like
Victoria’s smile faded completely. "Arthur gets to watch the house he built burn to the ground—just like he watched my grandfather walk out into the snow thirty-five years ago."
***
