Chapter 9 - The Trap Reverses
Before Marcus and I could move toward the vault door, the heavy steel entrance slammed shut with a deafening boom.
The electronic lock clicked into place.
The vault’s internal intercom crackled to life with static, followed by a familiar, cultured voice.
“You always were remarkably sharp, Victoria,” the voice said smoothly.
It was Judge Harrison Vance.
“Judge Vance,” I said, keeping my tone perfectly calm as I looked up at the security camera in the corner of the vault ceiling. “I should have known. The Vance family couldn't afford to let the real Sterling heir take back fifty-one percent of the company.”
“My brother Richard built Sterling Global into a fifty-billion-dollar empire over the last quarter-century,” Judge Vance said over the speaker, his voice void of any judicial warmth. “Do you really think we were going to hand it over to a girl raised in a suburban gutter by a low-class fraudster like Eleanor?”
“You paid Eleanor to keep me buried,” I stated clearly, ensuring every word was captured by my encrypted wiretap. “And when Eleanor got greedy and tried to use a fake lawsuit to steal my personal money, you used the court to corner her.”
“Eleanor became a liability,” Vance admitted coldly. “She was sloppy. She started stealing from your Vanguard account, bringing federal eyes onto the family name. I used your courtroom appearance to crush Eleanor and Julian so they could never talk. But I didn't expect you to find Helena’s Swiss key.”
“You can’t keep us locked in this vault forever, Vance,” Marcus shouted toward the camera. “Federal agents know we’re here!”
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“They know you stepped into a bank, Marcus,” Vance replied sinisterly. “They don't know that the oxygen system in Vault 402 is about to suffer an unfortunate mechanical failure. By the time they open that door tomorrow morning, you and Victoria will have suffered from simple, unavoidable asphyxiation.”
The air vents above us hissed, and the flow of fresh air abruptly cut off.
