Chapter 9 - The Fall of the House of Sterling
Within forty-eight hours of the St. Regis catastrophe, the empire Victoria and Richard Sterling had built on lies and blood imploded with apocalyptic velocity.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and the District of Connecticut unsealed a forty-seven-count indictment. The charges read like a war crimes tribunal: First-Degree Murder, Attempted Murder, Domestic Terrorism through Prohibited Biological Agents, Human Experimentation without Consent, Witness Tampering, and Grand Larceny exceeding four hundred million dollars.
Senator Richard Sterling was arrested at his Greenwich estate while attempting to board a chartered helicopter bound for a non-extradition country in South America. His political career was dead; his senate colleagues unanimously voted for his immediate expulsion before the sun had set.
At the federal detention center in Lower Manhattan, Victoria Vance-Sterling sat in an eight-by-ten concrete cell, stripped of her Chanel suits, her diamond rings, and her identity. She wore an orange jumpsuit and plastic slip-on shoes.
Her high-priced attorneys had already resigned after the Department of Justice froze every single bank account tied to her name under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Sitting across from her behind the reinforced visitation glass was Julian.
He looked different now. The exhausted, traumatized boy from the churchyard was gone. He wore a dark, comfortable wool coat. The color had returned to his face. The darkness behind his eyes had been replaced by the quiet, immovable peace of a man who had walked through hell to protect his family.
Victoria picked up the red telephone receiver with trembling, handcuffed hands. Her face was hollow, dark circles bruised beneath her eyes, her blonde hair greasy and unwashed.
Julian lifted his receiver.
“Did you come to gloat, Julian?” Victoria’s voice was raspy, stripped of its aristocratic purr. “Did you come to see the mighty fallen?”
“No,” Julian said calmly. “I came to bring you this.”
He held up a single sheet of paper against the glass.
It was a certified medical document from the Mayo Clinic.
“What is that?” she spat.
“It’s Clara’s medical evaluation,” Julian explained. “And the analysis of Mother’s genetic research. You spent fifteen years trying to recreate Arthur Sterling’s synthetic peptide because you thought it made you superior. You thought it made you a god among sheep.”
Julian leaned closer to the glass.
“The peptide wasn't an enhancer, Victoria. It was a genetic defect. It causes premature cellular degradation in the frontal cortex. In less than three years, the very chemical you injected into Mother will trigger the exact same rapid neuro-decline in your own brain. Mother wasn't trying to hide the cure from you. She was trying to synthesize an antidote before you killed yourself.”
Victoria stared at the medical report. Her jaw began to tremble. A look of primal, inescapable terror washed over her features.
“No…” she whispered, the telephone receiver shaking violently against her ear. “No, you’re lying! Arthur was a genius! I am his masterpiece!”
“You’re not a masterpiece, Victoria,” Julian said, his voice laced with profound, tragic pity. “You were just his first failed experiment. You murdered the only woman who spent thirty years trying to save your life.”
Julian slowly lowered the receiver.
“Julian! Don't hang up! Julian!” Victoria slammed her handcuffed fists against the reinforced glass, screaming like a caged phantom. “YOU GIVE ME THE ANTIDOTE! JULIAN! COME BACK HERE!”
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Julian turned his back on her. He walked down the long, gray detention corridor, the heavy steel security doors sliding shut behind him, cutting off the dying echoes of Victoria’s screams forever.
***
