Chapter 10 - The Ghost of Sterling Past
The photograph sat on the metal interrogation table like a toxic relic. Julian stared at the face of his uncle Victor, a man whose portrait had hung in the grand staircases of the family estate until a mysterious boating accident erased him from the family registry when Julian was just a boy.
"Are you certain?" Julian asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "DNA records confirmed his death decades ago."
Agent Miller shook his head slowly, sliding a second file forward containing faded newspaper clippings and old passenger manifests. "Death certificates can be easily falsified when you have enough capital and the right legal connections. According to Marcus's digital correspondence, Victoria didn't just stumble into wealth; she was recruited by your uncle five years ago specifically to infiltrate your company and dismantle it from the inside out."
Julian felt the ground give way beneath him. The wedding, the calculated manipulation, the hostility toward Lily—none of it was random cruelty. It was a multi-year corporate assassination plot orchestrated by a family member he thought had been dead his entire adult life.
"Why?" Julian demanded, slamming his palm against the metal table. "Why go through all this elaborate theater just to take over a logistics firm?"
"Because Sterling Logistics holds exclusive government defense logistics contracts dating back to the Cold War," Miller explained calmly. "Contracts that your mother refused to renew or sell off. Your uncle wanted those supply routes to run his private international shipping syndicates. Eliminating your mother, discrediting you, and removing anyone who could inherit the empire was the only way to gain full control."
Julian stood up abruptly, pacing the small confines of the interrogation room. His mind raced. If Victor Sterling was alive and operating out of Geneva, and Victoria had executed the proxy transfer before her arrest, the foreign firm would initiate the corporate takeover at midnight. That left them less than six hours to legally block the transfer before the global markets opened.
"I need to get to the main archives in the estate library," Julian said decisively, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. "My mother kept physical copies of all original charter documents in a secondary vault that requires both a bloodline biometric scan and a mechanical key."
Agent Miller stood up with him, grabbing his jacket. "I'll dispatch a tactical escort to accompany you. Victoria’s associates are still at large, and if your uncle is running this operation, he has local operatives watching your every move."
As Julian and Agent Miller stepped out of the precinct into the cool night air, a sleek black sedan pulled up sharply to the curb. The rear door swung open automatically, but instead of the expected federal marshals, the interior glowed with an eerie green light from a laptop displaying a live feed of Lily sitting safely inside the downtown safehouse.
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Julian froze mid-step, his blood turning to ice as a digitized voice played through the sedan's external speakers.
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