Chapter 7: The Final Desperate Card
Chapter 7: The Final Desperate Card
Inside the cold, sterile visitor room of the county detention center, Chloe sat behind a reinforced glass barrier. Her glamorous high-society dresses were gone, replaced by a coarse orange jumpsuit. Her unwashed hair was pulled back carelessly, and dark circles shadowed her sunken eyes.
Sitting on the opposite side of the glass was an elderly woman dressed in a modest, dark wool coat, holding a worn leather handbag. It was Eleanor Vance—Vance Sterling’s bitter ex-wife and Chloe’s estranged aunt, who had lived in bitter obscurity after her own high-society divorce years ago.
“You failed miserably, Chloe,” Eleanor said, her voice dry and laced with deep contempt. “You had one job: pull Julian into a scandal long enough for Vance to execute the takeover. Instead, you got exposed by a five-year-old child and dragged us all into the mud.”
Chloe’s eyes flashed with wild, toxic hatred. She slammed her handcuffed wrists against the counter. “It wasn't my fault! Victoria planned the whole thing! She used her daughter to set a trap for me!”
“Excuses won't open these prison doors,” Eleanor sneered softly. “Vance is facing twenty years in federal prison. His legal team is abandoned. But I still have access to one final asset—a set of sealed medical documents from the late Sterling patriarch’s estate.”
Chloe leaned closer to the glass, her breath fogging the surface. “What documents?”
“Twenty-five years ago, before Julian’s father passed away, he modified the family trust charter,” Eleanor whispered, her eyes gleam with malicious intent. “There is a forgotten, dormant clause regarding corporate lineage. If an heir is proven to have been fathered through non-marital fraud or hidden adoption, the entire trust equity automatically reverts to the secondary bloodline—which happens to be my son, Ethan.”
Chloe’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying... Julian isn't a true Sterling?”
“It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't,” Eleanor said with a sinister grin. “The original paternity records were archived in an old estate vault in upstate New York. If those records disappear or are altered before the annual family charter audit next week, a public challenge will freeze Julian’s executive control instantly. The board will have no choice but to appoint an interim trustee.”
“And you want me to help you launch this challenge from inside here?” Chloe asked, a cruel, familiar spark returning to her eyes.
“I need you to sign a sworn affidavit claiming that Vance confided this secret to you while you were working together,” Eleanor instructed, sliding a legal document against the glass pass-through. “If you do this, my lawyers will guarantee your bail payment tomorrow morning under a key witness protection petition.”
Chloe looked down at the document. The offer of freedom and the chance to inflict one final, devastating blow on Victoria and Julian was too intoxicating to resist.
May you like
Without a second thought, Chloe took the pen provided by the guard and signed her name in bold, jagged letters.
“Victoria thinks she won,” Chloe hissed through the glass, her face contorting into a vengeful grin. “I’m going to tear her perfect life down to the ground.”
