Chapter 16 - Blood and patent
Claire walked slowly toward the table, her leather boots clicking rhythmically against the concrete. Marcus stayed three paces behind her, his coat unbuttoned, his gaze calculating the angles of the twelve armed guards scattered along the catwalks above.
"Who are you?" Claire asked, stopping ten feet from the table.
"My name is Damian Vance," the young man replied smoothly, gesturing toward the empty iron chair across from him. "Julian was my father. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life in an exile your mother engineered with remarkable precision."
Richard let out a muffled whimper through his bloody lips, struggling against the heavy zip-ties securing his wrists to the iron chair. "Claire... don't listen to him... he’s insane..."
One of the guards stepped forward and struck the back of Richard's neck with the butt of an automatic rifle. Richard slumped forward, groaning into his chest.
Claire didn't flinch. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her eyes remained cold and unblinking. "Your father lost a corporate vote thirty years ago, Damian. Eleanor owned fifty-one percent of the founding shares. That isn't theft. That’s business."
Damian let out a rich, genuine laugh that echoed off the high corrugated ceiling. He stood up, towering over the table, and pulled Eleanor's leather-bound journal from inside his coat pocket.
"A corporate vote?" Damian repeated, shaking his head with mock pity. "Is that what she told you before she died? Is that the bedtime story that kept you warm while you were scrubbing floors in exile?"
Damian flipped open the yellowed pages of the journal and tossed it onto the center of the table.
"Read page forty-two, little sister," Damian said softly.
Claire froze. The breath locked inside her throat.
"What did you just call me?" she whispered.
Damian walked around the table, stopping directly behind Richard's slumped, pathetic form, resting his hands heavily on the older man's shoulders.
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"Did you really think Richard was your father, Claire? Look at him. He’s weak. He’s spineless. He couldn't build an empire if the blueprints were handed to him on silver plate." Damian leaned down, whispering into Richard's ear, "Tell her, Richard. Tell her why you hated her so much that you let my associate throw her out into the gutter."
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