Chapter 5 - The Vance Empire Fractures
By noon, news of the scandal had obliterated the financial markets. The ticker symbol for Vance Enterprises plummeted by forty-two percent in what Wall Street commentators were already dubbing "The Red Wedding Crash."
Inside the heavily guarded Vance estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, Julian Vance sat in his study with a glass of neat whiskey, his hands trembling violently. On the television mounted to the wall, a financial anchor was dissecting the catastrophe:
*"—federal authorities have raided the Manhattan offices of Cole Dynamics following allegations of massive intellectual property theft and fraudulent representation. Concurrently, Moretti Syndicate has launched a hostile takeover bid for Vance Enterprises, backed by David Bennett’s surviving heir, Ava Bennett..."*
Julian threw his whiskey glass at the screen. The heavy crystal shattered against the glass display, sending amber liquid dripping down the digital face of the television.
"Damn you, David!" Julian howled into the empty room. "Even from the grave, you’re choking me!"
The double doors of the study burst open. Chloe stormed in, her designer silk blouse rumpled, mascara staining her cheeks.
"Dad! What is going on?!" Chloe screamed, slamming her purse onto the mahogany desk. "Ethan is on the news! The FBI was at our penthouse! They seized our accounts! My credit cards were declined at the salon! Do you know how humiliating that is?!"
Julian looked at his spoiled daughter, his eyes bloodshot and hollow. "Credit cards? You’re worried about your credit cards, Chloe? We are facing federal prison."
Chloe froze. "Prison? What are you talking about? Ethan is the one who stole the software! We’re the Vances! We don't go to prison!"
"Ethan didn't steal that software on his own, you idiot!" Julian snarled, slamming his fist onto the desk. "I found Ethan five years ago! I realized the Bennett girl was a computational genius. I set Ethan up to seduce her, to extract her father’s unfinished neural-mapping algorithms! I promised Ethan ten percent of the buyout if he handed over the finished product and dumped her when it was done!"
Chloe stepped back, horrified. "You... you orchestrated their entire relationship?"
"I had to!" Julian breathed heavily, clutching his chest. "David Bennett's estate held a dead-man's patent claim over eighty percent of my commercial real estate ventures. If Ava ever discovered the legal trust her father set up before he died, she could liquidate every skyscraper I own! I had to make sure the software was legally transferred to Ethan, and then to Vance Enterprises through your marriage!"
"And now?" Chloe whispered, her face draining of color. "What happens now?"
Before Julian could answer, the door to the study opened once more. It wasn't security.
It was Dominic Moretti, flanked by two armed federal marshals and Ava Bennett.
Julian slumped back into his leather armchair as if he had been shot.
"You didn't knock," Julian muttered weakly.
"You didn't knock twelve years ago when you broke into David Bennett's office with a lethal dose of digitalis and an ultimatum," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on the back of Chloe's neck stand up.
Ava stepped forward, carrying a slender leather-bound ledger. She set it gently on Julian's desk.
"Do you recognize this, Julian?" Ava asked quietly.
Julian’s eyes drifted down to the ledger. His breath caught in his throat. It was David Bennett's handwritten private journal—the exact book Julian thought he had burned over a decade ago.
"How... how do you have that?" Julian whispered.
"My father knew you better than you knew yourself," Ava said, her voice rich with solemn authority. "He knew you were skimming from the pension funds. He knew you were laundering money through offshore shell corporations in the Caymans. And he deposited an encrypted duplicate of every single offshore transaction with the Moretti Family Trust."
Dominic leaned over the desk, placing his palms flat on the wood, trapping Julian within his shadow.
"The federal marshals behind me aren't here to negotiate, Julian," Dominic said softly. "They are here to serve eighteen counts of wire fraud, securities manipulation, corporate espionage, and grand larceny. And by five o'clock today, the state prosecutor will officially reopen the investigation into the wrongful death of David Bennett."
Julian looked at Ava, his arrogant facade completely shattered, reduced to a sniveling old man. "Ava... please. Your father and I... we were brothers once. You can't destroy my family. Think of Chloe! She had nothing to do with this!"
Ava looked at Chloe—the woman who had smiled cruelly as Marcus poured red wine over her, the woman who had flaunted her stolen wealth.
May you like
"You didn't care about my family when you left me an orphan on the streets of New York, Julian," Ava said coldly. "Officers. Take them both into custody."
***
