Chapter 11 - Treason at the Top
The cabin went dead silent. Dante stared at the paper in his hands, his eyes tracking down the Swiss banking coordinates and the corporate shell entities listed at the bottom. Vance Logistics. The maritime shipping conglomerate he had spent a decade building into a multi-billion-dollar empire had funded the contract on his child's life.
""Arthur Pendelton,"" Dante whispered, the name dropping like poison from his lips.
Pendelton was his chief financial officer, a refined, gray-haired Brahmin who had managed Dante’s transition from illicit European distribution into legitimate international trade. Pendelton had sat across from Dante at board meetings, smiled, handled the tax audits, and toasted to their quarterly profits.
""Pendelton doesn't have the stomach for wet work,"" Elena said, recognizing the name from Dante’s past life. ""He's an accountant, Dante. He panicked when he saw the feds circling.""
""He didn't panic,"" Dante countered, his voice chillingly composed. ""He calculated. If I die without an heir, the company charter dictates that the controlling shares revert to the board of directors. Pendelton becomes executive chairman. But if I have a child—a verified blood heir—the estate enters a blind trust until she comes of age, managed by an independent executor.""
He looked back at the infant sleeping under the foil blanket. ""Paige’s birth certificate. You filed it when she was born?""
Elena nodded slowly. ""I had to... for her medical records. But I left the father's name blank.""
""It doesn't matter,"" Dante said. ""Pendelton has access to state health registry flags. The moment her blood sample hit the hospital system with the genetic markers matching my family registry, the algorithm alerted his servers. He hired Salvatore’s remnants to eliminate her before I found out she existed.""
""So he wasn't trying to draw you out,"" Elena realized, her face draining of color. ""He was tying up a loose end. If Paige died of an unexplained infant respiratory failure, nobody would have investigated. You would have never known.""
Dante folded the paper into a neat, precise square and tucked it into his pocket. ""He miscalculated.""
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""Where are we landing?"" Elena asked, looking out the darkened window.
""We’re not going to a safehouse,"" Dante replied, turning to the co-pilot. ""Reroute the bird. Set down at the executive pad at Vance Tower, Manhattan. It’s time to call an emergency board meeting.""
