Chapter 23 - The Devil’s Bargain
Julianna looked entirely out of place amidst the salt spray, rust, and jagged rocks. She wore a tailored white cashmere coat lined with fur, an umbrella held over her head by another masked guard. Her smile was sharp, theatrical, and dripping with manic satisfaction.
"Right on time, darling," Julianna called out, her voice amplified by a small megaphone in her hand. "Always the punctual businessman. Tell me, did you miss me? Or were you too busy playing suburban peasant with the woman you threw away for me?"
"Let her go, Julianna," Alexander said, his voice carrying clearly over the roar of the surf. He held the bundled blanket tighter against his chest, keeping its face turned away from the blinding halogen lights. "You have what you came for. The boy is here. Let Elena walk to the truck."
Julianna chuckled, a dark, melodic sound that chilled Alexander far more than the freezing wind. "Oh, Alexander. You still think this is just about pride, don't you? You still believe that pitiful one-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar buyout was enough to settle the score?"
She stepped closer, the snow crunching beneath her designer boots, stopping just behind the kneeling Elena. She drew a small, silver-plated pistol from her coat pocket and rested the barrel casually against the base of Elena’s neck.
Elena flinched, but she kept her chin up, glaring at Alexander with tears spilling over her cold-bitten cheeks. "Alexander... please... not Leo..."
"Shut up, you pathetic cow," Julianna snapped, tapping the cold steel against Elena’s skull. She looked back up at Alexander, her eyes gleaming with genuine madness. "Do you have any idea what my father discovered six months ago, Alexander? When the Vance Corporation underwent the mandatory generational audit?"
Alexander’s mind raced. "The audit was routine. I handed the majority shares over before I left."
"You handed over the *operational* shares, you idiot!" Julianna hissed, her composure slipping into pure venom. "You forgot your great-grandfather’s trust! The Vance Foundational Trust holds eighty percent of the maritime port rights across the entire eastern seaboard. And under the original charter from 1924, those rights cannot be liquidated, transferred, or sold to any outside entity—including my family—unless the Vance male bloodline is extinguished... or legally subjugated to a designated guardian!"
The puzzle pieces slammed together in Alexander’s mind with the force of an avalanche.
The marriage. The divorce. Julianna’s sudden reappearance in his life three years ago. Her insatiable push to separate him from Elena.
"You didn't marry me because you loved me," Alexander said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You married me because the Sterlings were going bankrupt, and you needed access to the foundational trust."
"And then you divorced me without producing an heir!" Julianna shrieked into the wind. "You walked away, thinking you bought your freedom with chump change! But then my father’s investigators found this wretched little harbor town. They found her. And they found the boy."
May you like
She sneered, her finger tightening on the trigger. "A legitimate Vance heir. Born in wedlock before your divorce was finalized. He’s worth thirty billion dollars, Alexander. And as his new legal stepmother and surviving guardian, I will control every single cent."
***
