Chapter 6 - The Tape Speaks
The room filled with the crackling, raspy voice of the late Arthur Sterling.
"If you are listening to this, Harrison, then I am already dead. And Victoria is likely celebrating her final victory.
For six months, I have noticed the strange metallic taste in my evening tea. I watched my hands shake. I felt my lungs fill with fluid. I took sample vials of my blood to a private lab in London. The diagnosis was poison—slow, methodical arsenic poisoning.
Victoria, my dear wife... you thought you were subtle. You thought my death would look like a natural heart attack brought on by executive stress. You wanted the fortune for yourself and Julian.
But you forgot one thing: I built an empire by calculating every risk.
I didn't stop you from poisoning me. I let you do it. Because it was the only way to ensure you would face absolute ruin."
Victoria screamed, rushing toward the desk to smash the tape recorder, but the two police officers restrained her, snapping heavy steel handcuffs around her wrists.
The tape continued to play.
"The boy, Leo, carries no legal claim to my fortune by blood. But by law, I have legally adopted him in secret. Every asset, every stock, every property goes to him. Victoria, you will spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security prison for premeditated murder.
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And Julian... my non-biological son whom you had during your affair with my former business partner... you get nothing."
Julian dropped to his knees, his face turning pale as paper. "No... no, Dad... no!"
