Chapter 14 - The Boardroom Trap
Every piece of my life had been a carefully engineered lie.
Eleanor was the cruel jailer, the Vance brothers were the public front, but Marcus Sterling was the puppet master who had pulled the strings from day one. He had positioned himself as my savior, guiding me to destroy Eleanor and Vance so he could claim the ultimate throne without leaving his fingerprints on the crime.
I returned to Sterling Tower at two o'clock.
Marcus was already standing in the executive boardroom, surrounded by six members of the Vanguard Risk Management Division—men I had worked with for years.
"Victoria," Marcus said smoothly, offering me a warm, fatherly smile as I walked in. "We’ve been waiting for you. We need you to sign the final asset transfer documents so Vanguard can secure your mother's trust."
I looked at the documents laid out on the table. They were legal authorization forms that would transfer full power of attorney over the Sterling estate to Marcus Sterling as the head trustee.
"You really thought I was stupid, didn't you, Marcus?" I asked, stopping five feet from him.
Marcus’s smile faded slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"You didn't help me build this case to bring justice to my mother," I said, my voice echoing off the glass walls. "You used me to remove Richard Vance and Eleanor because they were becoming greedy liabilities. You wanted me to clean the house so you could walk in and take fifty-two billion dollars."
Marcus sighed, tossing his pen onto the table. The warm, supportive demeanor vanished, replaced by an icy, calculated chill.
"Helena was too idealistic, Victoria," Marcus said softly, stepping closer. "She wanted to give away thirty percent of the company’s profits to public development funds. She didn't understand how real power works. I had to eliminate her. And for twenty-five years, I kept you alive, waiting for your twenty-fifth birthday so the trust would open."
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"And now?" I asked.
"And now, you're going to sign those documents," Marcus said quietly. He motioned with his hand, and the two Vanguard officers behind me stepped forward, reaching for their sidearms. "Or you’re going to meet the exact same fate your mother met twenty-five years ago."
