Chapter 7 - The Bribe in the Account
Maya stared at the crisp white envelope sitting beside the dark crimson puddle of wine. Her breath hitched in her throat. She hadn't given Julian Vance her banking details, nor had she authorized any transactions in her name.
"What is this?" Maya asked, her voice dropping to a cautious whisper. She refused to reach out and touch it.
Julian smiled, a smug, practiced expression that made Maya want to throw her glass at his head. "Dr. Sterling is a very thorough man. He anticipated that you, as the logical, protective sibling, might object to the arrangement once the details came to light. To prevent any messy legal battles or public scandals that might jeopardize the project, he took the liberty of securing your cooperation in advance."
Nia leaned forward across the mahogany table, her eyes wide with panic. "Maya, what did he do? What's in that envelope?"
With trembling fingers, Maya finally reached out, picked up the envelope, and slid the single enclosed paper free. It was a certified cashier's check drawn from a Swiss account, made out directly to her name. The amount written across the front was five hundred thousand dollars.
"Half a million dollars," Maya breathed, the numbers blurring before her eyes. She felt sick to her stomach. "This is hush money. He bought me off before I even knew I had a price."
"It's not hush money, it's an endowment," Julian corrected smoothly. "Dr. Sterling considers you an essential part of the family lineage. He wants you to be comfortable while your sister completes her term. The funds are fully cleared, completely untraceable, and entirely yours to keep, provided the pregnancy proceeds without interference."
Evelyn let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, slumping back against the wall. "Thank God," the older woman whispered, closing her eyes. "We can pay off the mortgage, clear Marcus's accounts, and have enough left over to set up a college fund for the baby. Everything is solved, Maya."
"Solved?" Maya screamed, ripping the check in half with a violent motion and throwing the pieces onto the floor. "Nothing is solved! Dad is dead, our family has been bought and paid for by a mad scientist, and my sister is carrying a genetic clone in her womb like a rented incubator! You think a check from a Swiss bank washes all of this away?"
Nia flinched as the pieces of the check fluttered down onto the Persian rug. Tears spilled over her eyelashes, cutting clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "Easy for you to scream, Maya! You don't live in this house! You don't see the foreclosure notices taped to the front door every morning! You get to fly in here with your clean hands and your high-and-mighty attitude, while I'm the one carrying the literal weight of keeping this family alive!"
May you like
Before Maya could formulate a response, Marcus stood up so fast his chair tipped backward, crashing loudly onto the hardwood floor. He pointed a shaking finger toward the hallway window. "Somebody's outside," Marcus whispered, his face completely bloodless. "Look through the glass. There's a car idling at the curb with its headlights off."
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