Chapter 14 - The Viper’s Tongue
The private visiting room at the federal detention center smelled of industrial disinfectant and old coffee. Julian Sterling sat behind the thick glass partition, his hands clenched so tightly into his lap that his knuckles were stark white. He looked hollowed out; his tailored suit hung loosely on his frame, his eyes shadowed with an agony that sleep could no longer soothe.
Across from him, Victoria sat with a triumphant, mocking smile, her head tilted slightly, admiring her son's ruin like a patron studying a tragic painting.
"You look dreadful, darling," Victoria purred into the telephone receiver pressed against her ear. "They don’t have an iron for your shirts at the halfway house? Or is your little orphan bride keeping you so busy changing diapers that you've forgotten how a Sterling carries himself?"
Julian slammed his hand onto the counter, the loud crack echoing off the cinderblock walls. The armed guard in the corner shifted his stance, resting his hand on his baton.
"Shut up!" Julian choked out, his voice raw with fury and shame. "Did you kill her mother, Victoria? Tell me to my face! Did you slaughter Emily and Daniel's mother thirty years ago?"
Victoria didn’t flinch. She leaned closer to the glass, her cold, predatory eyes boring into her son's soul.
"Slaughter is such an unrefined word," she whispered, her lips almost touching the partition. "Eleanor Vance was an accountant, Julian. A pathetic, middle-class auditor who uncovered where the early Sterling capital actually came from. She wanted to go to the federal authorities. She thought her quaint little morality was worth more than the dynasty I was building for you."
"You murdered her..." Julian breathed, tears of utter horror spilling down his cheeks. "And then you watched me meet Emily in college. You encouraged me to date her. You hosted our engagement party in the Hamptons. You smiled and hugged her while knowing you murdered her mother!"
"Of course I did," Victoria laughed softly, a terrifying sound of absolute psychopathy. "Poetic justice requires patience, my dear boy. Eleanor took fifty million dollars of my foundation's funds and hid them in offshore trusts for her children. I needed Eleanor’s bloodline back under my roof so I could reclaim what was mine. When Emily became pregnant, the trust conditions changed. The baby was the key to unlocking the final bearer bonds."
"You pushed her off a mountain for money?" Julian gasped, his voice cracking with unbearable nausea.
"No, Julian," Victoria’s expression turned utterly venomous, stripped of all humanity. "I pushed her off that cliff because she dared to look at me with Eleanor's eyes. Because she dared to carry a child who would inherit everything while making you soft. But Daniel interfered. That filthy, gutter-born soldier ruined thirty years of work."
She smiled, a wide, horrific grin that sent a spike of sheer terror through Julian’s heart.
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"Tell Emily to hold that baby tight tonight," Victoria whispered into the receiver. "Because a mother’s vengeance isn't bound by prison walls. And tonight, the debts are being called in."
***
