Chapter 5 - The Betrayal at Sterling House
Victor Dane had served my family for twenty-six years.
He had negotiated my father’s first international acquisition.
He had held my mother’s hand in the hospital when I was born.
When I was twelve, he taught me to sail.
When I was nineteen, he wrote the recommendation that helped me enter graduate school.
My father listened to the recording three times.
With every replay, something inside him seemed to fracture.
“He knew about Northstar,” I said.
“He drafted the agreements.”
“Then he knew exactly how Matthew could violate them without triggering an immediate audit.”
My father called an emergency meeting at Sterling House.
Doctors refused to discharge me, so Marcus arranged a secure connection.
Victor entered the boardroom at 4:00 p.m.
He wore his usual gray suit and carried the leather briefcase my mother had given him for his fiftieth birthday.
He smiled at my father.
Then he saw my face on the wall screen.
The smile vanished.
“Clare.”
“Hello, Uncle Victor.”
I had called him that my entire childhood.
The title tasted poisonous now.
My father placed printed transcripts of the recording on the table.
Victor read the first page.
His hands did not shake.
“You are interpreting an incomplete conversation.”
“Complete it for us,” I said.
Victor claimed the training data had been purchased through a legal vendor.
He claimed the phrase “handle the girl” referred to managing my concerns.
He claimed the audio might have been manipulated.
My father remained silent.
Victor turned toward him.
“Adrian, we have spent half our lives protecting what you built.”
“No,” my father said.
“We spent half our lives building it together.”
His voice cracked.
“You spent the other half deciding how much of it you could steal.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
He admitted advising Matthew.
He insisted he had done it to protect Sterling Capital from my reckless marriage.
According to him, Matthew’s ambition could be controlled.
My father’s attachment to me could not.
“You were prepared to sacrifice billions to rescue her every time she made a mistake,” Victor said.
“I created Northstar to rescue the company,” my father replied.
“No.”
Victor looked directly at me.
“You created it because your daughter could not survive the consequences of choosing the wrong man.”
I felt the words land.
He wanted shame to do what Matthew’s cane had failed to do.
He wanted me small.
My father rose.
“Security will escort you out.”
Victor closed his briefcase.
“You should ask Clare why NexusCore’s first prototype failed.”
“I know why it failed,” I said.
“The data was corrupted.”
Victor smiled.
“The data was stolen.”
He moved toward the door.
“Not from a corporation.”
“From the United States government.”
The room went silent.
“If federal investigators trace it back to NexusCore, Matthew will lose his company.”
He looked at my father.
“You will lose Sterling Capital.”
Then he looked at me.
“And Clare will lose the comforting fiction that she was ever an innocent victim.”
Security removed him from the boardroom.
Minutes later, Marcus discovered that Victor had deleted seventeen years of legal archives.
At the same time, every screen in my hospital room turned black.
May you like
A red message appeared.
WE KNOW WHERE YOUR MOTHER IS.
