Chapter 15 - The Sister’s Ledger
I kept the barrel steady, my eyes narrowing as I studied her face. The bone structure, the piercing green eyes, the razor-sharp composure—she looked startlingly like Vanessa, but there was an underlying layer of calculated ruthlessness that made Vanessa look like an amateur.
“Elena Vance,” I said, the name clicking into place alongside old financial records from my early corporate expansions. “Vanessa’s older sister. Former chief risk officer for global acquisitions at Vanguard Syndicate. They told the board you resigned five years ago to live off-grid in Zurich.”
Elena let out a low, musical laugh, setting her coffee cup down on the metal table. “Corporate biographies are like fairy tales, Mason—written to make the sheep feel safe while the wolves rearrange the pasture. Vanessa was always the ambitious one who wanted the spotlight, the high-society parties, the executive corner offices. But she lacked vision. She thought Sloane Infrastructure Group was just a real estate company.”
“And what do you think it is?” I demanded, not lowering my weapon by a single millimeter.
“It’s a master key,” Elena said, her voice dropping its playful edge, turning sharp and analytical. “The Midtown expansion you’re building isn't just commercial retail and luxury apartments. Your subterranean transit and utility grid routing overlaps with three major federal fiber-optic backbones and municipal energy reserves. Whoever controls your infrastructure controls the digital and physical lifeline of the entire Southeast United States.”
“So you tried to poison my wife, frame my executives, and threaten my newborns just to seize a utility grid?” I growled, stepping closer.
“We didn't want to destroy your family, Mason—we wanted to absorb it,” Elena corrected me smoothly, standing up from her chair and walking slowly toward the edge of the light. “When Julian and Vanessa failed, they proved they were liabilities. You wiped them out for us, saving my department the trouble of cutting ties. But you seem to forget one crucial detail.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You think you defeated Sterling and seized his capital,” Elena smiled, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “Look at your private terminal right now. Check your corporate holdings account.”
My phone buzzed violently in my pocket. I pulled it out with my left hand while keeping my eyes locked on her. The screen lit up with an emergency notification from my chief financial officer:
May you like
“URGENT: Global asset transfer initiated from parent accounts. Seven billion dollars in liquid capital and 51% of Sloane Infrastructure Group voting shares just transferred to an unverified offshore holding entity. Authorization code accepted via your personal biometric signature.”
My blood ran cold.
