Chapter 13 - The Serpent's Nest
Clara’s spine stiffened. ""How? Harris had five units at the main entrance.""
""She didn't take the main entrance,"" Vance said, his eyes scanning the police report flashing across his screen. ""She broke away into the old drainage culvert behind the tennis courts. She had an accomplice waiting in an unmarked vehicle on the state highway.""
Clara immediately realized the truth. Eleanor was never acting alone. For thirty years before Julian even entered business school, Eleanor had survived by latching onto wealthy families, bleeding their trusts dry, and vanishing before the auditors could piece together the fraud.
""Who owns the car, Vance?""
""Registered to a private shell company called Belladonna Holdings,"" Vance replied. ""Based out of an abandoned warehouse district near the old shipyard. Clara... your father’s decommissioned private yacht is docked at Pier 4. The Sea Sovereign.""
Clara’s blood ran cold. The Sea Sovereign wasn't just a retired vessel; it had a secondary offshore server array her father had installed during the maritime strikes of 2018. It contained the complete, unredacted corporate records of every client Vance Shipping had ever serviced—including foreign defense contracts.
If Eleanor breached those servers and leaked the files to the dark web, the fallout would trigger federal investigations that would dismantle Vance Shipping forever, regardless of Julian's arrest.
""Marcus!"" Clara shouted, descending the grand staircase into the foyer.
Marcus Cole was already standing by the double front doors, checking the magazine of his sidearm. ""My team intercepted the vehicle’s direction on highway cameras. She’s heading straight toward the industrial docks. We have fifteen minutes before she reaches the marina.""
""Get the car,"" Clara ordered.
""Clara, you shouldn't go,"" Vance pleaded, clutching his briefcase. ""Let the SWAT tactical units intercept her. Your head is bleeding again, you’re in no condition—""
""Eleanor carved this into my head because she wanted to erase me,"" Clara said, turning to Vance, her eyes burning with an unshakeable fire. ""I am going to make sure she remembers the face of the woman who buried her.""
Five minutes later, Clara sat in the passenger seat of Marcus’s black pursuit SUV as it tore out of the Vance estate gates, tires screeching against asphalt, the siren wailing through the morning fog.
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The rain had begun to fall—a cold, torrential downpour that blurred the windshield. Through the grey sheets of water, the rusty silhouettes of shipyard cranes rose like giant iron skeletons against the bleak horizon.
Pier 4 lay ahead. And at the end of the pier, the lights inside the bridge of the Sea Sovereign were already burning bright.
