Chapter 11 - The Counter-Strike
Victor Vance did not flinch. For five agonizing seconds, the boardroom hung in suspended terror. Then, Victor slowly began to clap, a rhythmic, sarcastic sound that echoed mockingly against the glass.
"Brilliant," Victor said, his eyes glittering with cold malice. "Truly an inspired performance, Rose. You would have made a marvelous stage actress. But you made one catastrophic miscalculation."
Richard Sterling stood up, slamming his palm on the table. "Call the private security downstairs, Victor! End this circus right now!"
"Patience, Richard," Victor murmured, tilting his head. "You see, my dear Rose... my loyal nephew Nathaniel... you spent the last forty-eight hours digging into twenty-year-old safety deposit boxes. But while you were looking into the past, you completely forgot to watch your flanks in the present."
Victor reached into his breast pocket and produced a sleek black tablet. He slid it across the glass surface until it stopped directly in front of Nathaniel.
On the screen was a live video feed.
The camera showed a private underground medical suite—the specialized recovery facility on the outskirts of the city where Eleanor Vance was currently receiving physical therapy for her injuries under armed guard.
Except the armed guards were not standing outside the door.
Two men dressed in tactical gear with no insignia stood inside the room. One of them held an silenced automatic rifle low against his thigh. Eleanor sat strapped into a wheelchair, an oxygen mask over her face, her eyes wide with terror as she looked toward the camera.
"Eleanor," Nathaniel breathed, every drop of color vanishing from his face. His voice cracked with an animal fury so intense that the nearest board members recoiled in terror.
Nathaniel lunged across the table, his hand wrapping around Victor’s throat with the force of an iron vice. Victor’s cane clattered to the floor as Nathaniel lifted the older man halfway out of his seat.
"Where is she, Victor?" Nathaniel snarled, his eyes feral, blood veins bulging at his temples. "Call them off right now, or I will end you in front of this entire board."
"Kill me..." Victor choked out through crushed vocal cords, a hideous smile stretching across his purple lips. "...and the feed goes dead. The command is biometric. If my heart rate flatlines, or if my thumb leaves this sensor ring on my hand... the ventilation in that room floods with nitrogen gas. She dies in less than ninety seconds, nephew."
"Nathaniel! Stop!" Rose screamed, grabbing Nathaniel’s wrists with all her strength. "Look at him! He wants you to do it! Don't touch him!"
Nathaniel breathed heavily, his chest violently rising and falling. His fingers dug deeper into Victor’s flesh for one agonizing second before he shoved his uncle back into the leather chair. Victor gasped for air, coughing violently as he rubbed his bruised throat.
"Here are the new terms," Victor rasped, his voice ragged but triumphant. "Nathaniel signs over his executive voting proxy to Richard Sterling and myself immediately. You, Rose, will sign an uncontested annulment declaration, citing fraudulent misrepresentation. You will surrender all claims to the Vance trust, and you will leave the country with your brother tonight."
May you like
Victor smoothed down the lapels of his suit with trembling fingers, picking up his cane from the floor. "You have thirty minutes to sign the transfer documents Albright has prepared. If the papers aren't executed and witnessed by this board by one o’clock, my men will turn the valve. Choose, Nathaniel. Your empire and your gutter bride... or your mother’s life."
***
