Chapter 12 - The Devil Wears Khaki
The Danbury Federal Correctional Institution sat like a concrete scar amid the dense Connecticut woods. Rain lashed against the armored glass of Julian’s SUV as it cleared the third security checkpoint. The razor wire atop the double perimeter fences glistened with icy rain.
Julian sat in the back seat, staring at the manila folder on his lap. Beside him sat Jonathan Vance, the ruthless federal prosecutor who had helped Julian take down Eleanor twelve months ago.
"She hasn't had a single disciplinary infraction in a year," Vance said, his voice grim over the hum of the engine. "Eleanor has been a model inmate. Cleans the library. Attends chapel. Refuses all visitors, including the high-powered appellate attorneys who still write to her. Until two days ago."
"What happened two days ago?" Julian asked, his voice low, cold as frozen iron.
"A formal request came from her cell. One visitor name only: Julian Sterling. And twenty-four hours later, that package arrived at your estate in Maine." Vance turned to face him. "Julian, that rattle was stolen from the federal lockup in Manhattan last Tuesday. Two armed men in police tactical uniforms forged marshals’ credentials, walked out with three pieces of evidence from Eleanor’s seized vault, and vanished. We have a massive leak."
Ten minutes later, Julian was escorted through four magnetic security doors into the high-surveillance visitation chamber. It was a bleak, soundproof box with fluorescent lights buzzing like trapped hornets. In the center stood a stainless steel table bolted to the linoleum floor.
The inner steel door clicked open.
Eleanor Sterling walked into the room.
Julian’s pulse surged, but his face remained an unreadable mask.
The woman who had terrorized his life, who had treated human beings like chess pieces on a board of merciless greed, wore standard-issue institutional khaki. Her once immaculate platinum-blonde hair was graying at the roots, tied back in a severe, low bun. Her face was etched with deep lines around the mouth and eyes, stripped of the five-thousand-dollar facial serums and Manhattan lighting.
Yet, as she sat down across from him, she did not slouch. She folded her hands on the cold steel table with the chilling elegance of an empress holding court.
"Julian," she purred, her voice raspy from a year of breathing recycled prison air. "You look tired, darling. The domestic life doesn't suit your jawline."
"How did you get the rattle, Eleanor?" Julian didn't blink. He leaned forward, his hands flat on the table, radiating lethal intent. "And how did you get my address in Maine?"
Eleanor let out a soft, melodic laugh that sent a shudder down the spine of the corrections officer standing by the door.
"You always were remarkably naive, my son," she said, tilting her head. "You thought that by exposing Sterling Capital’s offshore dummy corporations, you dismantled my empire. You thought you left me with nothing." She leaned in, her pale blue eyes blazing with a madness so profound, so calculating, it made Julian’s blood turn to ice. "Sterling Capital was merely the storefront, Julian. The toy company I used to amuse your pathetic, spineless father."
"You’re serving twenty-five years without parole," Julian said, his voice dropping to a vicious whisper. "You will die in this cage. In an orange jumpsuit. In a six-by-eight cell."
"Will I?" Eleanor smiled. Her teeth were white, predatory. "You see, Julian, when you dissolved the trust, you broke a covenant that was made before you were even a stain on a sonogram."
Julian frowned. "What covenant?"
Eleanor’s smile widened, revealing a sadistic delight. "You honestly believe you were my first child?"
The room seemed to lose all air. Julian stared at her, his mind reeling. "What are you talking about?"
"Ask yourself why your father lived in terrified silence for thirty years," Eleanor whispered, her gaze boring into his soul. "Ask yourself where the initial fifty million dollars came from that launched Sterling Capital in 1988. I didn't inherit it from my father. I took it. From a man who makes me look like a Sunday school teacher. A man who gave me a son long before I married your father."
Eleanor reached across the table, her fingernails tapping against the steel with the cadence of a funeral march.
"His name is Alexander Sterling-Vane. And he just landed at JFK. He wants what was stolen from him, Julian. He wants the fortune you gave away to your little peasant wife’s charity. And he wants the child you dared to name as the sole heir to the Sterling name."
Julian stood up so violently his steel chair screeched against the concrete floor. "If you or anyone connected to you comes near Clara or Maya, I will burn down whatever shadow you’re hiding behind. I won't call the marshals, Eleanor. I will end it myself."
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Eleanor didn't flinch. She simply picked at a loose thread on her sleeve and looked up at him with pitying eyes.
"Check your phone, darling. Alexander doesn't make threats. He makes acquisitions."
