Chapter 8 - The Queen’s GambitTwo days later, the financial headlines shook global markets.
VANCE MARITIME ASSETS FROZEN; CEO ARRESTED FOR FRAUD AND CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE. NAVY VETERAN IDENTIFIED AS LEAD FEDERAL INVESTIGATOR IN MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR DEFENSE SCANDAL.
I sat in my new office on the top floor of the Federal Maritime Commission building in Washington, D.C. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Potomac River, where grey naval vessels glided silently through the morning mist.
My phone buzzed on the mahogany desk. It was an unsaved number, but I already knew who it was.
I pressed speakerphone.
"Clarissa?" Beatrice Vance’s voice sounded thin, frail, and utterly broken. "Please... you have to help us. The lawyers say all our accounts are frozen. The mansion is being seized by asset forfeiture. Audrey... Audrey is threatening to disown us because her credit cards were declined at a boutique in Milan. We have nothing left."
I looked down at the coffee mug on my desk, which bore the emblem of the Department of Defense.
"You have each other, Mother," I replied evenly.
"Clarissa, we're your family!" she sobbed over the line. "How can you be so cold? How can you look at your own flesh and blood and show no mercy?"
May you like
"Because," I said, leaning back in my leather chair, letting the sunlight catch the faint edges of the scars visible at my collarline, "when I was trapped under four tons of burning steel on the Leviathan, wondering if my lungs would fill with water or smoke first... I called out for my family. And you were too busy attending a charity gala to notice I was gone."
I didn't wait for her reply. I pressed the end call button, cutting the connection with a sharp, definitive click.
