Chapter 9 - The Final Desperate Strike
The silence that descended upon the boardroom was suffocating.
On the massive screens, the elite board members watched in graphic, high-definition horror as Victoria Vance shoved the massive iron sofa straight at a heavily pregnant Clara. They heard the crystal-clear audio of Victoria’s vicious voice echoing from the surround-sound speakers:
*"Julian thinks you’re going to tie him down forever with this bastard brat. You think you’ve won the Vance crown, don't you, little gutter rat?"*
Several board members gasped, clapping their hands over their mouths. Arthur Pendelton turned his head toward Victoria, his eyes filled with utter revulsion. Harold Vance buried his face in his hands, openly weeping in shame.
Then came the kick.
The sickening thud of Victoria’s pointed shoe slamming into Clara’s pregnant abdomen echoed through the boardroom, followed by Clara’s terrifying scream as she plunged into the pool.
And finally, the camera zoomed in on Victoria’s cold, smiling face as she watched the bubbles rise from the deep end and whispered:
*"Die quietly, you filthy leech."*
Julian paused the video.
The frame remained frozen on his mother’s demonic sneer, blown up on four eighty-five-inch screens for every powerful executive in Chicago to witness.
"Attempted first-degree murder," Julian said, his voice echoing in the dead silence. "Attempted feticide. Tampering with evidence. Corporate fraud. And conspiracy to unlawfully seize control of the Vance Family Trust."
Victoria stood frozen behind the table. Her breathing was ragged, her chest heaving beneath her ivory suit. The pearls around her neck seemed to be choking her. She looked around the table, desperately searching for an ally, but every single board member averted their gaze in disgust. Even her loyalists were shaking their heads, pushing their chairs back to distance themselves from her.
"It's fake," Victoria choked out, her voice rising to a shrill, hysterical pitch. "It's an AI-generated deepfake! Julian created it! He's a tech genius, he manipulated the video! Harold, tell them! Tell them your wife could never do such a thing!"
Harold Vance slowly lifted his head. His eyes were red, filled with forty years of accumulated cowardice and regret. "I can't do this anymore, Victoria," Harold whispered brokenly. "I saw the shoe in your dressing room this morning. It had pool chlorine and blood on the leather. I saw you throw it in the incinerator chute."
Victoria stared at her husband as if he had stabbed her through the heart. "You pathetic coward!" she shrieked, losing every shred of her aristocratic sanity. "I built this empire! None of you would have a single penny without my ruthlessness! I did what had to be done to save this family from that gutter trash!"
She whipped her head toward Clara.
All the sociopathic hatred that had simmered inside Victoria for months exploded into pure, violent insanity. Her eyes locked onto Clara sitting defenseless in the wheelchair.
"You ruined everything!" Victoria screamed.
With the feral speed of a cornered beast, Victoria grabbed a heavy, solid-crystal water carafe from the table, smashed it against the obsidian surface to create a jagged, lethal glass blade, and lunged across the narrow space straight toward Clara’s throat.
"Die!" Victoria shrieked.
"Clara!" Arthur Pendelton yelled.
Clara didn't flinch. She didn't scream. She simply leaned back into her chair, her eyes cold and unflinching.
She didn't need to scream.
Before Victoria could take two steps, Julian moved.
He didn't hesitate. He stepped into his mother’s path, his left hand snapping out like a steel vice, clamping around Victoria’s wrist with bone-crushing force, stopping the jagged crystal glass inches from his chest. With his right hand, he struck hard and fast, disarming her with a brutal military strike to her forearm.
The shattered crystal carafe clattered harmlessly across the hardwood floor.
Julian twisted his mother’s arm behind her back and slammed her face-down onto the cold obsidian table, pinning her with his forearm across her shoulder blades, exactly where she had stood moments earlier proclaiming herself queen.
"Get off me!" Victoria shrieked, her cheek pressed hard against the glass, her hair tumbling out of its elegant pins. "I am your mother! Julian, let me go!"
"You stopped being my mother the moment you kicked my unborn son," Julian whispered into her ear, his voice deadly and low.
The heavy mahogany doors swung open once more.
This time, it wasn't family. It was eight uniformed officers from the Chicago Police Department, flanked by two detectives in trench coats and a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Victoria Vance," the lead detective announced, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt. "You are under arrest for attempted murder, aggravated battery of a pregnant person, and federal securities fraud. You have the right to remain silent."
Julian stepped back, releasing her.
Marcus and the police officers hauled Victoria to her feet. The cold steel cuffs snapped tightly around her manicured wrists. She thrashed and spat, cursing in languages she had learned in European boarding schools, her face contorted into an ugly, unrecognizable mask of defeated malice.
As they dragged her past Clara’s wheelchair, Victoria stopped, glaring down with venomous hatred. "Your brat will never survive," Victoria hissed through yellowed teeth. "He will die in that incubator, and you will have nothing!"
Clara looked up at her mother-in-law. A serene, triumphant smile touched her pale lips.
"He's already breathing on his own, Victoria," Clara said softly, her words delivering the final, fatal blow to Victoria's sanity. "And he will inherit every single penny you ever killed for."
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Victoria let out a blood-curdling scream of pure defeat as the FBI agents dragged her out into the executive lobby, her designer heels dragging helplessly across the polished marble floors, down toward the squad cars waiting below.
***
