Chapter 25 - THE BOARDROOM AMBUSH
"I’m not getting on that plane," Christian said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.
Eleanora didn't blink. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a sleek, titanium satellite tablet. She tapped the screen twice and slid it across the table toward him.
The screen displayed a live streaming feed from the high-security psychiatric holding wing of Manhattan Central Booking.
Inside the stark, white-tiled cell sat Clara Vance. Her designer dress was gone, replaced by a drab orange jumpsuit. Her makeup was smeared, her posture slumped against the concrete wall. But standing outside the cell door were two men in dark gray suits—attorneys from *Sterling & Sterling Global Asset Management*.
"If you refuse," Eleanora said with clinical indifference, "Clara’s bail will be posted within ten minutes. By midnight, a press release will be blasted to every financial desk from Tokyo to London. It will contain the complete medical dossier you just dragged out of the crypt. It will detail the illegal somatic cloning, the offshore clinics, the genetic harvesting."
Christian felt the air leave his lungs. "You would destroy your own company?"
"It is not *my* company," Eleanora countered, stepping forward until her face was inches from Christian's. "It is *Arthur's* monument to his own vanity. The market value of Sterling Global is twenty-two billion dollars. If the scandal breaks, the SEC will freeze every trust account, the Department of Justice will seize the estate under federal anti-cloning and human trafficking statutes, and both of you will spend the rest of your lives inside a federal supermax."
"And if we go?" Julian’s quiet voice broke the tension.
Eleanora looked down at the boy, a predatory smile curling her lips. "If you board the aircraft, the transfer remains private. The Argentine clinic is sovereign territory under our private treaty. The legacy survives. The Sterling name remains untarnished."
"You don't care about the name," Julian said, his eyes scanning the biometric tablet on the table. "You care about the Argentine vault. The biometric access requires two living genetic descendants. Arthur is dying, so his print will lapse upon cardiac cessation. You don't need Christian to sign over the trust. You need us there to put our hands on the scanner before Arthur's heart stops."
Eleanora’s smile vanished. Her eyes hardened into emerald flint.
"Ten minutes, boys," she whispered, turning toward the foyer. "Owen’s car has already been confiscated by my private security team. The transport is outside. Do not make me instruct them to use restraints."
As her footsteps faded down the hall, Christian dropped into the chair, burying his face in his hands. "Julian... what have I dragged you into?"
Julian walked over to the desk, pulled a tiny black USB drive from the lining of his cuff, and inserted it into the back of Christian’s encrypted terminal.
"You didn't drag me into anything, Christian," the boy said, his fingers flying across the keys with impossible speed. "I knew about the Buenos Aires flight four days ago. I let Clara’s silicone belly drop in front of the board because it was the only way to force her out of hiding."
Christian looked up, stunned. "You... planned this?"
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"Arthur didn't send that photograph from Argentina, Christian," Julian said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as the screen flashed with rows of green terminal code. "I did. Now stand up. We are going to Buenos Aires. But we aren't going as cattle."
***
