"And Camden?" I asked, looking Beatrice dead in the eye.
Beatrice stepped forward, resting both hands on the edge of my desk, her perfume heavy, suffocating, and sour in the quiet room.
"Dominic Sterling is a reasonable man, Vivian," Beatrice purred, her eyes glittering with cold malice. "He understands that family disputes can become... messy. If you sign this voluntary deed in lieu of foreclosure right now, Dominic will arrange for Camden’s federal charges to be reduced to a minor misdemeanor regulatory fine."
She leaned closer, her pearls clinking against her coat buttons.
"You sign the airport over to Dominic, you surrender the Bahamian registers, and we let you keep two million dollars in a private trust so you don't starve in your old age," Beatrice whispered. "Refuse, and Camden’s lawyers will unseal your father’s 2017 medical records in court."
My eyes narrowed into slits. "My father's medical records?"
"Did you really think Richard was compos mentis when he signed those hangar expansion bonds, darling?" Beatrice laughed—a cruel, rattling sound. "Camden had a private neurologist evaluate Richard two weeks after his stroke. We have documentation proving your father was suffering from vascular dementia when he authorized the original credit line."
She tapped her manicured red nail against the vellum paper.
"If this goes to trial, Vivian, Camden won't just take the airport. He will drag your father’s name through every newspaper from Newark to London. Richard Alden will be remembered not as a pioneer of aviation, but as a senile old fool who was manipulated into bankruptcy by his own greed."
The air inside the room went completely still.
Arthur Vance stood up from the sofa, his hands trembling with absolute, incandescent rage. "You vile, miserable woman—"
I raised a single hand. Arthur stopped speaking immediately.
I didn't yell. I didn't throw my coffee.
I picked up Beatrice's black leather gloves from my blotter between two fingers, walked around my desk, and dropped them into the stainless-steel trash can beside the door.
Then, I turned back to face her.
"Beatrice," I said, my voice dropping into that chilling, unshakeable cadence that had made corporate raiders back down in boardrooms across three continents. "You spent nine years telling Camden that he was born to rule this company. You fed his vanity, you indulged his greed, and you encouraged him to take a mistress because you thought an Alden woman was too independent to be controlled."
Beatrice’s mouth dropped open in shock.
"Your son is not coming home to his luxury penthouse, Beatrice," I continued, taking one slow, deliberate step toward her. "Because forty-five minutes ago, the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey unsealed an emergency superseding indictment against Camden Pierce."
I tapped the screen of my tablet, turning it so Roger Vance could read the freshly stamped federal dispatch.
"Count One: Treasonous export of classified defense avionics under the Arms Export Control Act. Count Two: Interstate transportation of hazardous biological contraband. Count Three: Federal racketeering under Title Eighteen."
Roger Vance’s face turned from smooth arrogance to the pale, mottled shade of skim milk.
"And as for Dominic Sterling?" I asked, looking directly into Beatrice's widening, terrified eyes. "Tell Dominic to check his private terminal at JFK. Because two squads of FBI tactical agents just kicked in the doors of his corporate suite."
Chapter 14
The silence that fell over my office was broken only by the sudden, frantic chime of Roger Vance’s smartphone.
The attorney pulled the device from his pinstriped breast pocket, his manicured fingers trembling so violently that he nearly dropped it onto the hardwood floor. He looked at the caller ID, swallowed hard, and pressed the phone to his ear.
"Sterling Residence... yes, Mr. Sterling?" Vance stammered.
The voice that erupted through the receiver was so loud, so raw with unadulterated fury, that every word echoed off the glass walls of my office:
"Vance! Where the hell are you?! The FBI is inside my penthouse! They have a search warrant for the offshore accounts and the Exuma lease! Get your ass down to Lower Manhattan right now!"
"Mr. Sterling, I'm currently at Teterboro with Mrs. Pierce—"
"Hang up the damn phone and get my criminal defense team on the line!" Sterling roared before the connection severed with a violent, concussive click.
Roger Vance stood frozen, the phone still pressed to his ear, his face completely drained of color.
Beatrice Pierce stumbled backward against the mahogany bookshelf, her hand flying to her pearl necklace, her aristocratic poise disintegrating into jagged, breathless panic.
"Dominic..." Beatrice whispered, her voice cracking. "Dominic was raided?"
"Your partner’s empire is currently being packed into cardboard evidence boxes by thirty federal agents, Beatrice," I said, walking slowly behind my desk and sitting down in my high-backed leather chair. "And Roger, before you scurry back across the Hudson River, let me give you a piece of free legal advice."
Roger Vance blinked, his throat working convulsively as he snapped his crocodile briefcase shut. "Mrs. Pierce... my firm was only retained for commercial debt collection—"
"Under Section Nineteen-Sixty-Two of Title Eighteen," I stated, each syllable falling like a lead weight, "knowingly attempting to enforce a fraudulent, usurious mortgage instrument generated through wire fraud and aggravated identity theft constitutes active participation in a corrupt racketeering enterprise."
I pointed toward the double doors of my office.
"If you ever set foot on an Alden Meridian airfield again, Counselor, Agent Miller will add your name to the co-conspirator index before your billable hour expires. Get out of my building."