Chapter 8 - The Corner Office
The penthouse suite of Sterling Tower felt like a glass cage suspended among the clouds. Julian sat behind his vast glass desk, an untouched glass of twenty-year-old scotch resting beside his phone. His jacket was discarded, his tie loosened, his hair no longer immaculate. The news of Nora's disappearance from Pier 42 had shaken his composure; he wasn't used to assets moving outside their designated parameters.
The private elevator bell chimed.
Julian stood up, a sneer automatically forming on his face as the doors slid open. He expected Richard to drag in a terrified Nora or a bruised Arthur Vance.
Instead, Nora stepped out alone. She had discarded the maintenance jacket, standing once more in her cream knit dress, her trench coat draped calmly over her shoulders, her taupe leather handbag held loosely at her side. She looked pristine, completely unbothered by the rain streaking the glass behind her.
""You have ten minutes before I instruct Richard to end Arthur's retirement permanently,"" Julian said, his voice taut with venomous control. ""Where is the briefcase?""
""The briefcase is safe, Julian,"" Nora said calmly, walking toward the center of the office with measured steps. Her heels clicked rhythmically against the Italian marble. ""Just as Arthur is currently safe in the custody of the state police outside your compound.""
Julian's face twitched. ""You're bluffing. You don't have the stomach for this. You never did.""
Nora stopped two paces from his desk. Slowly, deliberately, she unzipped her handbag and withdrew the leather-bound adoption covenant bearing Eleanor’s broken wax seal. She let it drop onto the glass surface between them.
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""I wondered why your mother looked at you with so much contempt whenever you made a mistake,"" Nora murmured, her voice steady and lethal. ""She didn't love you, Julian. She manufactured you.""
Julian looked down at the header on the page, and the color instantly abandoned his face.
