Chapter 6 - The Midnight Warrant
Christian took an involuntary step back toward the idling Escalade, his hand reaching instinctively toward the door handle.
“Don’t bother, Christian,” I said, stopping six feet away from him, letting the rain soak my hair without flinching. “The driver in that car was replaced by Marcus’s private security twenty minutes ago. You aren't going to Evelyn’s townhouse. And you certainly aren't going to the board meeting.”
Christian’s face paled beneath his golden, European tan. For a man who had lived like an untouchable prince in the shadows of the Bavarian Alps for over a decade, the sudden collapse of his reality was staggering.
“What is this?” Christian demanded, trying to summon an authoritative tone, though his voice wavered slightly. “Evelyn told me you were incapacitated! She told me you were in a medical facility!”
“Evelyn is currently sitting in a holding cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, charged with federal securities fraud and the first-degree murder of our father,” I replied coldly.
Christian recoiled as if I had struck him with a whip. “M-murder? Arthur? Arthur died of natural causes! Evelyn swore to me—”
“Evelyn lied to you, Christian, just like she lied to Julian, and just like she lied to the entire world,” I interrupted, stepping closer until I was standing directly beneath the rim of his umbrella. “Did you really think she kept you alive out of love? Out of maternal duty? You were an insurance policy. A phantom heir she kept in a golden cage in Munich, waiting for the day she needed to wipe out both Julian and me.”
Christian’s breathing grew ragged. He looked past me, noticing Marcus stepping out of the Maybach, holding a thick, legal leather portfolio.
“Our father spent the last five years of his life grieving for you, Christian,” I said, my voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating whisper that cut through the roaring wind. “He kept your bedroom untouched. Every Christmas, he set an empty plate at the head of the dining table and cried into his scotch after everyone went to sleep. And all that time, you were living in a five-million-euro villa in Starnberg, drinking Evelyn’s champagne, waiting for him to die so you could claim his empire.”
“I didn't know!” Christian shouted, his eyes wide with a mixture of guilt and panic. “She told me Arthur had abandoned me! She told me Arthur disowned me after the accident because he didn't want a disfigured heir! She provided forged letters, Elena! Hand-written letters with Arthur’s signature!”
Marcus walked up, flipping open the portfolio to reveal a series of forensic handwriting analyses.
“Evelyn was an expert in psychological warfare, Christian,” Marcus stated. “She used Arthur’s genuine signature stamps from our corporate legal department to forge those letters. She isolated you, convinced you your own family despised you, and fed your resentment for twelve years so that when the time came, you would sign whatever documents she placed in front of you without asking a single question.”
Christian dropped the umbrella. It rolled across the wet tarmac, caught by the gusting wind, exposing him to the torrential rain. He buried his face in his hands, his tall frame trembling violently.
“My God...” he groaned, the reality of his wasted, manipulated life crashing down upon him. “What have I done? What did she have me sign?”
“She had you sign a irrevocable power of attorney assigning all intellectual property rights of the Sterling gene-therapy patents to a shell company owned by an anonymous consortium in Zurich,” I said. “Patents that are worth over four billion dollars. Patents that were designed to treat pediatric leukemia—the very disease our mother died from.”
Christian looked up, his face soaked in rain and tears. “Elena... I swear to you, on our mother’s grave, I didn't know about the murder. I didn't know about Julian attacking you. Evelyn told me you were suffering from clinical paranoia and that Julian was abusing the company funds. She told me I was coming home to save our family’s legacy!”
I looked at my long-lost brother. The resemblance to my father was overwhelming, but the weakness in his posture reminded me painfully of Julian. Evelyn Vance had an uncanny ability to find weak men and twist them into hollow instruments of her ambition.
“If you want to save our family’s legacy, Christian,” I said, my voice hardening into pure command, “then you have exactly one chance to redeem your soul.”
Christian straightened up instantly, grasping at the lifeline. “Anything. Tell me what to do. I’ll sign whatever you want.”
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“You’re going to walk into that boardroom at seven o’clock this morning,” I said, “not as Evelyn’s secret weapon, but as the state’s key witness. And you’re going to deliver the final nail in her coffin.”
***
