Chapter 6 - THE FINAL PLOT TWIST
The heading on the document read:
VOLUNTARY ADMISSION OF FRAUD & AGREENENT OF PRISON TRANSIT
Damian backed away from the table as if it were on fire. "What... what is this?!"
"You didn't think I paid $100 million just to set you free, did you?" Elena asked with a dark smile. "I bought your debt so that I become your sole creditor. This document is a full confession of all the illegal insider trading, tax evasion, and wire fraud you committed over the last seven years."
"I won't sign it!" Damian yelled, backing toward the door. "If I sign that, I go to federal prison for thirty years!"
"If you don't sign it," Elena said, pressing a button on her intercom, "I void the debt purchase. Nikolai’s men are currently waiting in the lobby downstairs. You walk out those doors as a free man... for about five minutes until they toss you in the back of a van."
Damian’s breath hitched.
Prison... or death at the hands of the Russian mafia.
"You're a demon," Damian whimpered, tears pouring down his face again. "You're not a human being... you're a demon."
"I'm the consequence of your actions, Damian," Elena said softly. "Sign the paper."
With trembling, shaking fingers, Damian picked up the pen. The same pen he had used to rule his fake empire. He signed his name at the bottom of the confession.
The moment his pen left the paper, two federal agents stepped out from behind the side door of the office.
"Damian Vance," the lead agent said, stepping forward with handcuffs. "You are under arrest for multi-million dollar corporate fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy."
Cold steel clicked around Damian’s wrists.
As the agents turned him around to lead him away, Damian looked back at Elena one last time. She was already sitting back at her desk, picking up her coffee cup, no longer looking at him.
"Elena!" Damian yelled as he was pushed out the door. "Why?! Why go to all this trouble?! You had the money! You had the power! Why ruin your life playing games with me?!"
Elena paused. She set her cup down.
She looked at Damian, and for the first time, a truly shocking, terrifying truth shone in her eyes.
"Because, Damian..." Elena said softly, her voice echoing in the hallway. "I'm not Elena."
Damian stopped dead in his tracks. The federal agents paused, confused.
"What... what did you say?" Damian gasped.
Elena reached up to her neck. She unbuttoned her collar slightly, revealing a small, faint surgical scar along her collarbone.
"Elena Voss died six years ago in that car crash in Switzerland," the woman said, her voice dropping into a completely different, darker tone. "The car crash you paid to cause so you could inherit Voss Global."
Damian’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. Terror—pure, unadulterated, cosmic terror—seized his heart.
"You..." Damian stammered, his body shaking uncontrollably. "You're..."
"I'm Sophia," she said, a chilling smile spreading across her face. "Elena’s twin sister. The sister you didn't know existed. The sister who spent six years having her face reconstructed to look exactly like her... just so I could walk into your office, let you treat me like trash, and take back everything you stole from my blood."
Damian let out a choked scream of pure madness as the federal agents dragged him down the hallway, his mind completely shattered by the realization that his entire downfall had been orchestrated by a ghost.
Sophia—formerly known as Elena—turned back to her giant glass window, looking down at the rainy streets of New York City.
The city was quiet. The empire was hers.
She picked up her glass of wine, raised it to the dark sky, and whispered into the quiet night:
May you like
"Rest in peace, sister. It is finished."
THE END
