Chapter 8 - The Price of Treason
The tension in the library was thick enough to choke on.
Vincent Rossi stood up slowly from the leather wingback chair. He walked toward the desk, picked up the quitclaim deed that Chloe had brought into the house the night before, and held it over the open flame of the green banker’s lamp.
He didn’t burn it. He just held it there, watching the paper curl slightly from the heat.
“You’re Arthur’s widow,” Rossi said quietly, looking down at the deed. “Arthur Vance gave me my life. I don’t forget debts. Ever.”
He pulled the paper back and tossed it onto the desk.
“The six point eight million dollar lien against Vance Manor is void,” Rossi announced.
Julian let out a ragged, gasping sob of relief, dropping his face into his hands. Richard Sterling groaned against the oak table.
“However,” Rossi continued, his voice turning cold as iron as he looked toward the Sterling family, “the debt does not disappear. The six point eight million dollars is still owed to Apex Meridian. And since Vance Manor is off the table... I will take alternative collateral.”
Chloe looked up, her face streaked with tears and mascara. “What... what alternative collateral?”
“The compound in Alpine, New Jersey,” Marcus Kane said, stepping forward with a malicious smile. “Registered under *Aethelgard Holdings LLC*. We’ve already pulled the foreign registry documents. Since Chloe Sterling used proceeds derived from a fraudulent bridge loan to secure the purchase, the corporate veil is legally severed under New Jersey civil forfeiture laws. Vincent, my firm has already drafted the transfer of ownership of Aethelgard Holdings directly to your primary holding company.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated horror. “NO! That’s my house! You can’t take it! I spent two years planning that! That’s my life!”
“Your life,” Rossi sneered, walking over until he stood directly over her, “belongs to me until every dime of that debt is cleared. The Alpine mansion covers five million of the principal. That leaves one point eight million.”
Rossi snapped his fingers. The enforcer let Richard up from the table.
Richard gasped for air, his nose bleeding onto his Tom Ford collar, his expensive suit ruined.
“Your yachting syndicate in Newport, Richard,” Rossi said flatly. “The charter boats, the warehouse in Bayonne, and your townhouse in Manhattan. By five o'clock tonight, you will sign over every deed to my associates. If you don’t... you’ll find out what happens to people who try to drag my name into a federal murder investigation.”
Victoria Sterling collapsed into an armchair, clutching her chest, Hyperventilating in terror.
“Get them out of my sight,” Rossi told his enforcers.
The two massive men grabbed Richard and Victoria by their arms, hauling them toward the front doors like sacks of rotting garbage.
Chloe scrambled to her feet, desperate, frantic, lunging toward Julian. She grabbed the lapels of his wrinkled jacket, shaking him with all her remaining strength.
“Julian! Tell them! Tell your mother!” Chloe screamed, her voice shrill and unhinged. “We’re married! You swore an oath! You love me! Don’t let them do this to me! Julian, please!”
Julian Vance looked at his wife.
For months, he had been blinded by her beauty, her pedigree, her promises of a lavish, aristocratic life in high society. He had let her poison his mind against the woman who had given him everything. He had been willing to watch his seventy-two-year-old mother thrown into an assisted-living facility just to keep Chloe happy.
Slowly, deliberately, Julian reached up and pulled her hands off his jacket.
“You told me my mother was hoarding my life,” Julian said, his voice flat, devoid of any warmth, any pity, any love. “You used me to steal her home. You lied about our child. You were going to let them throw me in prison.”
Julian took a step back, turning his face away.
“I don’t know who you are,” Julian whispered. “Get out of my mother’s house.”
Chloe stared at him, her mouth opening and closing in disbelief.
“Thomas,” Eleanor said, her voice cutting through the silence. “Escort Miss Sterling to the driveway. And make sure she takes nothing from this house except the wet clothes on her back.”
Thomas stepped forward, his massive hand clamping firmly onto Chloe’s shoulder.
“Move, Miss,” Thomas ordered.
May you like
Chloe opened her mouth to scream another curse, but the cold, unflinching look in Thomas’s eyes silenced her. Weeping, broken, and stripped of every illusion of wealth she had ever constructed, Chloe was dragged out of the library, her heels scraping helplessly against the hardwood floor.
***
