Chapter 6 - The Midnight Raid
The boardroom exploded into chaos.
Shareholders stood up, shouting over one another, while corporate lawyers scrambled to pull their files shut.
“This is absurd!” Julian shrieked, his voice turning shrill and panicked. “He’s making this up! He’s using an orphan child to stage a hostile takeover of my voting shares!”
Julian looked frantically toward his chief legal counsel, a slick man named Richard Croft. “Croft, tell them! Tell them the paperwork for Sarah’s estate is finalized!”
Before Croft could open his mouth, the two NYPD officers stepped forward, pulling out a pair of steel handcuffs.
“Julian Vance,” the lead detective said, pulling a paper warrant from his coat. “You are under arrest for arson, murder in the first degree, and corporate embezzlement.”
“On what evidence?!” Julian screamed, backing away toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. “You have no proof! You have nothing!”
Marcus stepped forward, opening his leather briefcase. He pulled out a black hard drive and a stack of printed bank transfers from a private bank in the Cayman Islands.
“We found your private offshore accounts twenty minutes ago, Julian,” Marcus said coldly. “You used the company’s logistics network to transfer fifty thousand dollars to a known arsonist named Victor Drake three hours before the fire on Altamont Avenue. Drake was taken into custody by the FBI an hour ago. He’s currently confessing everything.”
Julian stared at the bank statements, his jaw slack, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
He looked at Nathan—looked into the eyes of the older brother he had tried to destroy for ten years—and realized that the trap had snapped shut around his neck.
“Nathan... please,” Julian stammered, dropping his arrogant persona, his hands trembling as the officers stepped behind him. “We’re blood! We’re family! Talk to them! We can work this out internally!”
Nathan walked up to Julian, looking down at him with cold, absolute disgust.
“You left Sarah’s children to freeze in a church basement, Julian,” Nathan whispered. “You forced an eight-year-old girl to count twenty-seven cents to buy milk for her dying brothers.”
Nathan leaned in close, his voice dropping into a lethal calm.
“You are no brother of mine.”
The officers pulled Julian’s hands behind his back and snapped the steel handcuffs shut with a heavy, metallic CLICK.
As the police dragged the screaming, cursing Julian Vance out of the boardroom in front of twenty silent executives, Nathan turned back to the conference table.
May you like
He picked up his satellite phone and dialed Mrs. Gable.
“Mrs. Gable,” Nathan said softly, his tone shifting instantly from lethal coldness to gentle warmth. “Tell Elelliana her uncle won't be bothering us anymore. And tell her... I’m coming home for dinner.”
