I Paid My Wife $150,000,000 To Divorce Me So I Could Marry My Ex—3 Years Later, One Photo Of Her Flower Shop Exposed The Dark Secret I Left Behind! / Chapter 36 / 100

Chapter 36 - The Sterling Downfall

The word *son* hung in the air like a poisoned blade.

Julianna looked at her father, her eyes wide with frantic horror. "Father? What did you do? You told me you were just going to bring the boy here! You told me we needed him as leverage for the trust!"

Marcus didn't answer. His breathing was rapid and wheezing, his aristocratic composure utterly annihilated. He lunged toward the private telephone console on the sideboard to call his personal legal counsel, but before his trembling fingers could lift the receiver, two federal marshals seized his arms, wrenching them behind his back.

*CLICK-CLACK.*

The cold steel of handcuffs snapped tightly around Marcus Sterling’s wrists.

"Get your filthy hands off me!" Marcus shrieked, struggling violently against the federal agents. "Do you know who I am? I am the chairman of Sterling Capital! I dine with governors! I own federal judges!"

"You used to, Marcus," Arthur Vance remarked dryly, adjusting his spectacles. "Unfortunately for you, those same judges were briefed on your offshore accounts three hours ago. Your bank accounts have been frozen under the Patriot Act. You don't have enough liquid capital left to buy a bottle of water from the lobby vending machine."

Julianna backed toward the corner, her hands covering her mouth as she began to sob hysterically. "Alexander... please! You loved me once! You know I didn't want anyone hurt! It was my father! He forced me into this! I did it for us—so we could rule this company together!"

Alexander looked at Julianna. For three years, his soul had been eaten alive by the memory of their shared youth, by the manufactured guilt that he had ruined her life by marrying Elena. Now, looking at her shivering against the cold glass, he saw nothing but a shallow, vindictive parasite who had gleefully plotted the murder of an innocent child.

"I never loved you, Julianna," Alexander said, his voice flat, devoid of anger, containing only the chilling finality of absolute truth. "I was nostalgic for an illusion that never existed. You were never more than a shadow. And shadows disappear when the light comes on."

The second team of agents stepped up to Julianna. "Miss Sterling, please put your hands behind your back."

"No! Alexander, look at me! Tell them to stop!" she screamed as the steel cuffs locked around her wrists. "You can't do this to me! You owe me! You ruined my life!"

Her shrieks echoed down the executive corridor as the federal marshals marched both Marcus and Julianna toward the private service elevator, stripping them of their phones, their credentials, and their dignity.

The remaining board members sat frozen, terrified to breathe, terrified to move, awaiting the wrath of the resurrected Vance dynasty.

Alexander did not look at them. He turned slowly toward Elena.

She was looking up at him, her dark eyes swimming with unshed tears, her composure finally beginning to crack under the colossal weight of three years of solitary survival.