Chapter 9 - The Vance Dynasty
The speedboat sliced through the dark, choppy waves of the outer harbor, churning white foam into the black water as it sped toward a private, unmonitored slipway on the southern coast. Maya had finally fallen asleep against Elena’s lap, exhausted by trauma and the rhythmic hum of the vessel's twin engines. Elena gently brushed wet strands of hair from her daughter’s forehead, her gaze drifting toward the receding skyline of the city.
""His father’s associates?"" Elena asked, looking up at Marcus, who sat shivering in the bow, a clean cloth pressed to his bleeding brow. ""Old man Vance died ten years ago. What associates are you talking about?""
Marcus swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly. ""Julian’s father didn't build Vance Capital with clean wall-street money, Elena. He ran an illegal money laundering syndicate for the Eastern European cartels through the port authorities. When he died, Julian took over the legitimate facade, but the real enforcers—the ones who handle their silent acquisitions—never went away. They are led by a man named Viktor Cole.""
Elena felt an icy chill settle in her chest. She had heard that name once, whispered in hushed, terrified tones during a closed-door board meeting her father had held shortly before his mysterious heart attack.
""Viktor Cole was the broker who arranged the hit on your father,"" Gabriel stated coldly from the helm, his hands firm on the steering wheel.
Elena gasped, her breath catching in her throat. ""My father died of natural cardiac arrest... the autopsy said—""
""The autopsy was falsified by the chief medical examiner, whose private clinic was financed by a shell corporation owned by Julian,"" Gabriel cut in, his voice hard as iron. ""Your father discovered that Julian was laundering cartel money through the Sterling Family Trust. When your father threatened to go to the Department of Justice, Julian had Cole administer a synthetic potassium chloride overdose that mimicked a massive heart attack. Three weeks later, Julian proposed to you.""
The horror washed over Elena in suffocating, nauseating waves. Her entire marriage had been a calculated execution. Julian had not merely betrayed her; he had murdered her father, stolen her inheritance, and groomed her child to be raised by his mistress.
Elena stood up, holding onto the safety rail of the boat, her eyes blazing with an incandescent, unyielding fury. The terrified, weeping woman in the master bedroom was dead.
""Clara,"" Elena said, her voice dropping into a deadly, chilling cadence. ""Where is Viktor Cole right now?""
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Clara looked up from her encrypted laptop, her screen reflecting cold blue light across her sharp features. ""He landed at the private municipal airport twenty minutes ago on Julian’s personal jet. They are meeting at Julian’s private penthouse to clean out the physical evidence lockers before the feds raid the premises.""
Elena clenched her fists. ""Turn the boat around.""
