Chapter 28 - The Architect’s Confession
The federal interrogation bunker beneath the Zurich Justice Palace was soundproof, sterile, and cold. Two layers of bulletproof glass separated the observation deck from the central holding room.
My father sat at the metal table, uncuffed, sipping mineral water as if he were waiting for a board meeting to commence.
I entered alone, leaving Sofia and my legal team on the other side of the glass. The heavy steel door sealed behind me with a vacuum hiss.
"You've improved," Alexander said without looking up. He set his glass down with surgical precision. "In 2016, you would have appealed to my morality. You would have cried, asked me why I left you alone to carry the weight, why I abandoned you. Today, you brought forty federal agents and froze my maritime lanes. You almost look like a Vance."
"The baby isn't Ricardo's," I said, cutting straight through his psychological theater. I stood opposite him, refusing to sit in the chair he had subtly gestured toward. "You slept with that twenty-three-year-old child to produce another heir because you realized you couldn't control me."
A low, dry chuckle rumbled in his chest. Alexander leaned back, steepling his fingers.
"Camilla was an instrument, Victoria. Just like Ricardo. A biological redundancy. You were becoming... sentimental. You spent eight hundred million dollars building corporate wellness programs and carbon-neutral freight ships. You were turning my empire into a charity project."
"I made your empire twice as profitable as it was when you 'died,'" I spat back.
"Profit is the byproduct of fear, not sustainability!" he snapped, his voice suddenly roaring like a crack of thunder in the small room. He leaned forward, the mask of patriarch slipping to reveal the monster beneath. "Do you think I built this global monopoly by being kind? The world is a meat grinder! You either hold the crank, or you become the mince! Ricardo was an idiot, yes, but he was hungry. He was willing to steal, lie, and impregnate whoever I told him to impregnate if it meant he got a taste of the sovereign throne."
He stood up, walking toward me until only inches separated our faces. The smell of his cologne—sandalwood and cedar—was the exact same scent that had lingered in his study when I was five years old, terrified of failing my entrance exams.
"You proved you have teeth, Victoria," he whispered, a twisted, demonic pride flashing in his gray eyes. "You ruined Ricardo. You humiliated Camilla. You outmaneuvered my initial banking freeze. But you made one critical mistake."
"And what was that, Alexander?"
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"You think the empire is in the assets," he smiled, a chilling, triumphant grin. "You think Vance Global lives in the ships, the docks, and the banking codes. You forgot who holds the Sovereign Killswitch."
***
