Chapter 7
Richard Sterling stood framed in the splintered doorway, the cold rain blowing mist across the threshold. Behind him, Julian was pinned to the gravel outside by two security guards, his coat covered in mud, struggling uselessly against their grip.
“Hand it over, Catherine,” Richard repeated, his voice silky, calm, and terrifying. “Don't make this complicated. You bought a picture for twenty dollars. Give it to me, and Victoria will wire two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to your mother’s account by midnight. You walk away clean. Your mother keeps her house. You go back to your gallery.”
Evelyn stood up from her stool, stepping in front of Catherine. “Get out of here, Richard. Clara was your sister! Your own blood! How could you sell her out to that monster?”
Richard’s gaze flicked to Evelyn, his eyes cold and hollow. “Clara was my half-sister. She lived in a fantasy world where art and romance mattered. She was going to throw away the Vance fortune on a cottage in the woods. Victoria offered me a future. A seat at the table. Clara was collateral damage.”
He took two deliberate steps toward the workbench. Catherine didn't shrink back. She stood tall behind the easel, her hand resting on the wooden frame of the painting.
“You’re too late, Richard,” Catherine said clearly.
Richard paused, his brow furrowing slightly. “What did you say?”
Catherine reached into her inner jacket pocket and pulled out the unfolding sheets of yellowed, glassine-protected parchment. She held them up under the camping lantern’s white glow.
“The wire transfer,” Catherine said, her voice ringing with defiance. “Signed by Victoria Vance. And the Swiss account ledger routing the two million dollars into V.V. Holdings. With your signature on the incorporation papers, Richard.”
Richard’s face drained of every drop of color.
The smug, arrogant facade he had worn all day fractured instantly into panic. His eyes darted to the guards behind him, then back to the papers in Catherine’s hand.
“Where did you get that?” Richard choked out.
“My father wasn't just hiding Clara’s painting,” Catherine said. “Clara took these from your briefcase forty years ago before she fled the cottage. She knew what you were planning. She gave them to my father so the truth would survive.”
“Give them to me,” Richard snarled, his composure completely shattering. He lunged forward across the workbench, his fingers clawing for the documents.
“No!” Evelyn screamed, grabbing an empty glass solvent bottle from the bench and smashing it across the edge of the table. She brandished the jagged glass at Richard with a mother’s feral fury. “Touch my daughter and I’ll tear your throat out!”
Richard stopped, startled by the older woman’s ferocity.
Outside, Victoria Vance had walked up to the doorway, leaning heavily on her gold-handled cane. She surveyed the shattered door, Evelyn holding the broken bottle, and Catherine clutching the documents.
“What is the delay, Richard?” Victoria demanded, her voice ice-cold.
Richard turned slowly, his hands trembling. “Victoria... she found the transfer slips. The original Cayman incorporation files. Everything Arthur took from the safe.”
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. For the first time since this nightmare began, Catherine saw genuine fear flicker across the matriarch’s ancient, aristocratic face.
The empire was crumbling. The foundation of lies that had sustained Victoria Vance’s reign for four decades was exposed under the light of a twenty-dollar camping lantern.
“Julian!” Catherine shouted toward the open door. “Julian, listen to me! Your grandfather was innocent! Victoria signed the wire! Richard took the cash!”
Outside, Julian heard her. A surge of volcanic rage erupted within him. With a roar of primal fury, Julian slammed his head back into the nose of the guard holding his right arm. The man shrieked, clutching his broken face as blood spurted between his fingers. Julian spun, driving a brutal right hook into the temple of the second guard, dropping him instantly onto the gravel.
Julian sprinted through the shattered doorway, bursting into the carriage house like a freight train.
He didn't hesitate. Julian grabbed Richard by the collar of his thousand-dollar coat, hoisted him off his feet, and slammed him spine-first against the heavy stone wall.
“You son of a bitch,” Julian breathed, his forearm crushing Richard’s windpipe. “You let my grandfather die in an asylum so you could pocket two million dollars!”
“Julian—please—” Richard gasped, his face turning purple, his feet dangling inches off the floor. “Victoria made the deal—she promised me—!”
“Silence!” Victoria’s voice cracked like a whip across the room.
Victoria stepped fully inside, her walking stick clicking loudly against the flagstone floor. Despite the chaos, her back remained rigid, her expression hardening back into ruthless stone.
“Put him down, Julian,” Victoria commanded. “Before you commit an act you cannot buy your way out of.”
Julian slowly lowered Richard, but kept his grip ironclad on the man’s lapels. He turned his eyes toward his grandmother—eyes blazing with pure hatred.
“It’s over, Victoria,” Julian said, his voice shaking with restrained violence. “The police. The press. The Vance board. Tomorrow morning, every newspaper in this country will run the documents on the front page. You are going to prison.”
Victoria stared at her grandson. Slowly, she began to laugh.
It was a chilling, dry sound that echoed off the damp stone walls.
“Prison?” Victoria said softly. “Do you really think a piece of forty-year-old paper is going to put me in a cage, Julian? I appointed the state attorney general. I fund the retirement trusts of half the appellate judges in New York.”
She turned her gaze toward Catherine.
“Ms. Turner. You are clever. Your father was resourceful. But you are missing the most important piece of the puzzle.”
Catherine held the documents tighter against her chest. “What piece?”
Victoria’s lips curved into a cold, venomous smile.
“You think Clara Sterling disappeared into thin air after she reached Vermont?” Victoria asked, her voice dropping into a mocking whisper. “You think your father just hid her away and lived happily ever after?”
Evelyn suddenly dropped the broken glass bottle. It shattered on the flagstones. “Victoria... no. Don't you dare.”
Catherine looked from her mother to Victoria, a sudden, suffocating dread seizing her chest. “Mom? What is she talking about?”
Victoria looked directly into Catherine’s eyes, delivering a blow more devastating than any bullet.
May you like
“Ask your mother why she never had any baby pictures of you, Catherine,” Victoria whispered. “Ask her why your birth certificate was issued in a rural Vermont clinic in December of 1984.”
***
