Chapter 19 - The hidden vault
"I am nothing like you," Claire said, her voice dropping to a lethal calm. "Let Richard go. Call an ambulance."
Damian glanced down at the pathetic, bleeding man groaning against the table. "Take him. He’s worthless to me anyway. But don't misunderstand our position, sister. You hold the encryption key, but I hold the deed to the ground beneath your feet."
Damian tossed a thin, dark leather folder onto the table next to the blood-stained journal.
"When your mother established the Eleanor Arts Foundation twenty years ago, she didn't use Sterling funds," Damian said, stepping backward toward the shadows where his armed escort waited. "She used the collateral from the Swiss Obsidian accounts. Accounts registered in my father’s name. I filed an emergency lien with the International Trade Court this afternoon. By midnight tomorrow, every asset you reclaimed—the estate, the foundations, the patents—reverts directly to the Vance estate."
Claire’s jaw tightened, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her panic. "The courts will take years to litigate this."
"The courts don't run the docks, Claire," Damian whispered, his figure melting into the gloom of the warehouse exit. "We do. Enjoy your final night in Eleanor’s house. When the sun rises, you’ll find out what happened to the people who helped her betray my father."
The guards retreated silently, moving like ghosts up the metal stairwells and vanishing into the shadows of the dry dock. The heavy iron doors groaned shut in the distance, leaving only the sound of rain drumming against the roof and Richard’s weak, wheezing gasps.
Marcus immediately rushed forward, slicing the zip-ties from Richard’s wrists and applying pressure to the shoulder wound with a clean linen cloth. "He’s lost a lot of blood, but the bullet passed through the muscle. He’ll survive if we get him to a hospital."
Claire didn't look at Richard. She picked up Eleanor’s journal from the table, wiping a smear of blood from the embossed cover with the cuff of her sleeve.
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"Claire..." Richard rasped, looking up at her with terrified, pleading eyes. "The greenhouse... under the conservatory... she hid the original charter there... don't let him take it..."
***
