Chapter 9 - The Cornered Beast
The aftermath was an apocalyptic collapse of an American dynasty.
Within forty-eight hours, the video of Eleanor’s brutality had garnered over one hundred and fifty million views across global platforms. The hashtag #CancelSterling trended number one worldwide. Protestors gathered outside Sterling Manor in Newport and Sterling Tower in Manhattan, carrying signs that read *PROTECT CLARA* and *JAIL ELEANOR STERLING.*
The corporate fallout was instantaneous.
Sterling Capital’s stock plummeted forty percent in thirty-six hours as institutional investors pulled their capital in droves. But Julian was ready. Stepping into the role of Chairman with absolute authority, he immediately liquidated his mother’s vanity projects, fired her corrupt board allies, and announced the creation of the *Clara Sterling Foundation for Domestic Abuse Survivors*, pledging two hundred million dollars of his personal equity to fund maternal care shelters across the country.
Yet, Eleanor was not dead. She was a cornered beast, and cornered beasts are the most dangerous.
Because of her vast wealth, her high-priced defense attorneys secured a five-million-dollar bail, pending trial. Eleanor was confined to her penthouse on 5th Avenue, wearing a GPS ankle monitor, stripped of her passports, abandoned by every single friend she had ever bought.
She sat in the darkened library of her penthouse, drinking gin straight from a crystal tumbler, her hair unkempt, her eyes bloodshot with psychotic obsession.
Across from her sat Arthur Pendelton, looking terrified.
"They have the high-resolution footage, Eleanor," Arthur whispered, wringing his hands. "The District Attorney is refusing any plea bargain that doesn't involve five years in a state penitentiary. And Julian... Julian has locked you out of every family trust. You are legally bankrupt within sixty days."
Eleanor slammed her tumbler onto the table, shattering the glass.
"I am not going to prison," she hissed, her voice vibrating with venomous madness. "And that little peasant will not raise the heir to the Sterling name. Not while I still draw breath."
"Eleanor, what are you talking about? You’re on an ankle monitor!"
"I don't need to leave this room to destroy her," Eleanor whispered, leaning forward, her eyes glittering with madness. "Clara is still at Rhode Island Memorial. She hasn't delivered yet. The baby is due in six weeks."
"And?"
"The hospital has private security, but private security can be purchased," Eleanor said, pulling a prepaid burner phone from beneath a cushion. "Clara’s mother was a maid in my summer estate thirty years ago, Arthur. Did you know that? Clara thinks she’s special, but she’s the bastard child of my late husband’s indiscretions. She is carrying my husband’s bloodline, and Julian’s child. That baby belongs to the estate. Not to her."
Arthur stared at her, horrified. "Eleanor... you’re talking about kidnapping. That’s federal. That’s life in prison!"
"It’s not kidnapping if Child Protective Services takes the child under an emergency ex-parte order signed by Judge Hastings," Eleanor grinned, a horrifying, skeletal smile. "Hastings owes me three million dollars from his offshore gambling debts. He will sign an emergency removal order declaring Clara mentally incompetent to care for the neonate the second the baby is born. The child will be delivered straight to this penthouse. And once I have the baby, Julian will crawl back on his hands and knees to get his child back. He will sign everything back to me."
Arthur backed away toward the door, realizing that the woman before him was no longer a calculating corporate shark. She had crossed into full, irredeemable insanity.
"You’re out of your mind, Eleanor," Arthur whispered, turning and running out of the penthouse.
Eleanor didn't care. She picked up the burner phone, dialed a contact listed only as *CLEANER*, and pressed the phone to her ear.
"It’s Eleanor," she said. "The hospital wing. Floor 4. Clara Sterling. Initiate Phase Two tonight. Make sure the doctors put her under general anesthesia when the labor begins. And take the child before she wakes up."
On the other end of the line, a man’s voice answered: "Understood, Mrs. Sterling. We’re in position."
Eleanor hung up, leaning back in her leather armchair, staring out the window at the Manhattan skyline.
May you like
"You thought you won, Julian," she whispered to the empty room. "A mother always takes what belongs to her."
***
