Chapter 39 - The Master of Puppets
"Down!" I roared, lunging forward.
Sterling drew a custom ceramic pistol with lightning speed, but he didn't aim at me.
He aimed directly at Julian Aldrich.
*Crack!*
The shot echoed deafeningly inside the stone vault. Julian let out a wet, strangled gasp as the bullet tore through his shoulder, spinning him violently around until he collapsed against the brass pedestals, clutching his chest in agony.
"You useless, arrogant boy," Sterling said coldly, not even looking down at Julian as he bled onto the cold floor. "You were only ever a blunt instrument. A distraction for Arthur while I consolidated the European debt."
Frank raised his carbine, but Sterling took a swift step backward, standing directly behind Sarah’s gurney, resting the muzzle of his ceramic weapon against the glass casing of her oxygen regulator.
"Lower the weapon, Frank," Sterling said softly. "One twitch, and I disconnect the line. Her oxygen levels will drop to zero before you can cross this room."
Frank halted, his teeth bared in fury, keeping his rifle trained on Sterling’s chest.
"Walter," I said, stepping between Clara and the gun, my voice dangerously calm. "This was never about Marcus, was it?"
Sterling let out a quiet, dry chuckle. "Marcus? Marcus Aldrich was a loud-mouthed pirate who thought he could conquer Wall Street with brute force and bribes. He didn't have the vision to understand what we created in 1994."
"What did you create, Walter?" Clara asked, her voice trembling with rage as she looked past him at her mother’s pale, motionless face.
"A sovereign empire," Sterling said, his eyes glittering with fanatic ambition. "The League was never meant to be a shipping company, Clara. It was designed to control the maritime supply chains of the entire Western hemisphere. Ports, fuel depots, customs clearances, deep-water berths. Whoever controls Wilmington and Rotterdam controls the lifeblood of international commerce."
Sterling tapped the brass lockbox on the pedestal with his free hand.
"Inside this box," Sterling continued, "is the original 1994 covenant. Not the forged copy Marcus had in New York. The real charter. And it contains an absolute exclusion clause: if Arthur Vance dies without a legally verified biological child, the totality of the assets reverts to the Sterling Continental Trust."
Clara stepped forward, her voice ringing with defiance. "I am his biological child! I was born to Arthur and Sarah Vance!"
Sterling smiled—a cold, terrifying, patronizing smile.
"Are you, Clara?"
The entire room went dead, suffocatingly still.
On the gurney, Sarah’s fingers suddenly twitched. A faint, shuddering gasp escaped from beneath her oxygen mask. Her eyelids fluttered open, dark and feverish, turning toward me.
"Arthur..." she whispered through the plastic mask, her voice so thin it was like dry leaves scraping against pavement. "Arthur... the safe..."
"Sarah," I choked out, taking a step toward her. "I’m here. I’m right here."
"Don't move, Arthur!" Sterling warned, pressing the gun closer to the valve. "Sarah knows the truth. Don't you, my dear? Tell him what we did in the Zurich clinic twenty-four years ago."
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears, turning from me to Clara. Her frail, trembling hand lifted an inch from the white sheet, pointing toward Clara with an agonizing mixture of love and heartbreak.
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"Clara..." Sarah gasped, her breath hitching in her chest as the monitor’s warning alarm began to beep at a frantic tempo. "Clara... forgive me... Marcus took your brother... but Clara... you are not Arthur’s child."
***
