Chapter 5 - A Mother's Poison
While Julian Thorne deployed his private army into the rain-swept streets, Victoria sat alone in her luxurious dressing room, staring into her three-way vanity mirror.
Her life was unraveling at hypersonic speed.
Her wrist was swollen and purple from where Ethan had crushed it. Her bespoke gown lay ruined in the corner, smelling of sour champagne. But worse than the physical pain was the terror gnawing at her soul.
Her phone buzzed violently on the glass table.
She snatched it up, hoping it was her father or the Sterling Global board of directors. Instead, it was an automated emergency notification from Credit Suisse:
*ALERT: Accounts ending in -8841, -0092, -4411 have been FROZEN under Federal Emergency Sanction Order 13344. Total balance inaccessible: $4.2 Billion.*
"What?!" Victoria screamed, dropping the phone. It buzzed again.
*ALERT: Sterling Global Logistics maritime license suspended by the International Maritime Organization. All cargo vessels ordered to dock immediately.*
A third alert pinged. It was an email from the Sterling Global Board:
*Emergency Resolution passed 8-0. Victoria Sterling removed as Chief Executive Officer effective immediately pending international fraud investigation.*
"No, no, no! This isn't real!" she shrieked, clutching her hair.
Ethan hadn't even fired a bullet yet, and her entire existence—the money, the title, the prestige she had spent her life worshipping—was crumbling like wet sand.
The reality hit her like a sledgehammer. Ethan Vance had not merely survived; he possessed the power to erase her with a single command. The legal system, the police, the corporate board—none of them belonged to her. They had always belonged to the power that walked behind the shadows.
Suddenly, her private phone rang. It wasn't an app notification. It was a blocked, unlisted number.
With trembling hands, Victoria pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello?!"
"Victoria."
Ethan’s voice sounded right in her ear, crystal clear, unbothered by the static of the storm.
"Ethan!" Victoria sobbed, panic shattering whatever pride she had left. "Ethan, please! Listen to me! I made a mistake! Julian Thorne... he's insane! He's coming for you! He has a mercenary squad called Cerberus! They're hunting you right now!"
There was a brief, chilling pause on the line.
"I know," Ethan replied calmly.
"Then take Leo and run!" she pleaded, purely out of self-preservation, knowing that if Julian killed Ethan, Julian would erase her next. "Leave the city! I will sign full custody over to you! I'll give you everything back!"
"You don't have anything left to give, Victoria," Ethan’s tone was cold as marble. "Your accounts are empty. Your company is dead. You are an empty vessel in an empty tower."
"Why are you doing this to me?!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "I am the mother of your child!"
"A mother protects her child with her life," Ethan said, every word like an executioner's blade falling. "You used him as a human shield against your own insecurities. You dragged him across a room to satisfy your petty ego. You let him starve when he cried for me. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"
Victoria froze. "How... how do you know that?"
"I know every meal he was denied. I know every bruise you covered with concealer," Ethan’s voice vibrated with a fury so dense it rattled the speaker. "The only reason you are still drawing breath right now is because I will not allow my son to grow up knowing his father killed his mother. But your life as you know it is over. When the sun rises, you will be in handcuffs, answering for five years of treason, corporate espionage, and child abuse."
"Julian will kill you first!" she spat back, terror turning back into wild, irrational hatred. "Cerberus has never failed! You won't live to see the sunrise, Ethan!"
"Tell Julian," Ethan said softly, "that I am waiting for him. And tell him to bring more men."
The line went dead.
Victoria dropped the phone. Outside the penthouse windows, lightning cracked across the black sky, illuminating two matte-black attack helicopters slicing through the low-hanging rain clouds, heading directly toward the industrial harbor.
May you like
The Cerberus Unit had taken flight.
***
