Chapter 16 - The Ghost in the Boardroom
8:30 AM. Sterling Tower, 5th Avenue.
The emergency meeting of the Board of Directors was already underway when the reinforced doors swung open with a resounding bang that silenced the room of thirty billionaire shareholders instantly.
Emily walked in. She was no longer wearing the timid attire of a newly discovered heiress. She wore a sharp, blood-red trouser suit, her hair pulled back into a severe, high ponytail, her eyes dark, rimmed with cold, unyielding iron. Behind her walked Daniel, his arm wrapped in a discreet black sling beneath an impeccable tailored suit, flanked by six armed ex-Mossad mercenaries hired overnight through a private trust.
At the head of the conference table, sitting in the chairman’s chair that Emily had vacated only yesterday, was a woman whose presence sucked the air out of the room.
She looked no older than thirty-five, despite the documents asserting she should be nearly fifty. Her cheekbones were razor-sharp, her emerald eyes identical to Emily’s, and her raven hair was styled in the exact wave Cassandra Vance had made famous in the high-society columns of the 1990s.
Around her neck was draped a gossamer scarf of woven silver silk.
"Good morning, daughter," the woman said, her voice a purr of dark velvet that sent an electric shock straight through Emily's spine.
The entire board looked on in paralyzed silence. Even the most hardened corporate raiders in the room looked as though they were watching an archangel and a demon negotiate across a mahogany table.
"You're not Cassandra," Emily said, her voice dropping into a register of deadly calm as she stepped toward the table, her hands resting flat on the polished wood. "My mother died in a helicopter sabotage over the Aegean Sea. Her dental records were matched by Interpol."
The woman laughed—a light, musical sound that held zero warmth. She reached into her Hermès handbag and produced an original, yellowed birth certificate, sliding it across the table toward Emily.
"Dental records can be bought for twenty thousand euros in Athens, darling," the woman said, leaning forward. "Thomas Sterling was a cowardly fool who thought he could use me to launder money and then lock me in an attic like a madwoman when I demanded my rightful half of the empire. So I faked my death. I let him raise you in the filth of the Bronx while I built the Leviathan Group from the ashes."
"You poisoned Eleanor last night," Emily said, her fingers digging so hard into the table that the nails turned white. "You tried to murder Leo—a twelve-year-old boy fighting for his life!"
The woman didn't even blink. "A pruning of the dead branches, Emily. Eleanor was an arrogant tyrant who treated me like a decorative accessory. And as for Leo..." She sneered with cold disgust. "He is not my son. He is the bastard child Thomas had with that cheap clinic nurse while I was freezing in an Italian safehouse. He is a parasite feeding on my fortune."
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"It's not your fortune anymore," Daniel interrupted, stepping forward, his voice a low growl. "Emily holds the primary trustee rights signed by the New York State Surrogate's Court."
Cassandra smiled, showing white, predatory teeth. "Does she? Check the morning wire, Mr. Vance."
