Chapter 27 - THE ARREST OF THE DOWAGER: CHAOS ON WALL STREET
The click of the steel handcuffs around Victoria Sterling’s wrists sounded like a gunshot through the hospital corridor.
As the marshals escorted her toward the elevator, the heavy steel doors opened to reveal Elena and Naomi. Elena was soaking wet, shivering under a heavy wool blanket, her boots dripping harbor water onto the polished floor. In her right hand, she held the steel briefcase retrieved from the underwater seawall.
Victoria stopped. The two women locked eyes.
The dowager’s mask of haughty indifference tried to reassemble itself, but the dark circles beneath her eyes and the tremor in her hands betrayed her defeat.
“You have nothing, Elena,” Victoria hissed through clenched teeth. “My attorneys will have me out on bail before the market opens. Sterling Maritime holds the commercial shipping contracts for half the Eastern seaboard. The Department of Justice cannot afford to disrupt the supply chain of this country!”
“They won't have to,” Elena said quietly, stepping forward and popping the dual latches of the steel case.
Inside lay the pristine, water-sealed original logbooks of the *Northern Star*, signed by Victoria Sterling herself, detailing the illegal shipment of weapons and industrial contraband that had preceded the deliberate scuttling of the vessel. Beside the logs lay the personal banking ledgers of the offshore accounts used to pay off the harbor police thirty years ago.
“The SEC has already halted trading on all Sterling Enterprises stock,” Elena continued, her voice echoing through the crowded corridor. “Your board of directors convened an emergency session thirty minutes ago. You have been stripped of the chairmanship, your voting rights have been revoked under the morality clause of the corporate charter, and federal agents are currently raiding your penthouse.”
Victoria’s breath came in shallow, ragged bursts. “You destroyed this family.”
“No,” Elena said, her voice dropping to a whisper that only Victoria could hear. “You destroyed this family the moment you thought money could wash away the blood of my father. Take her away.”
Flashbulbs detonated like artillery as the marshals escorted Victoria through the hospital’s main lobby. Hundreds of reporters screamed questions, their voices blending into a wall of deafening noise.
*“Mrs. Sterling! Did you order the hit on your grandson?”*
*“Is it true the Sterling maritime fleet was built on federal fraud?”*
*“How do you plead to the murder of Captain Thomas Vance?”*
Victoria Sterling said nothing. She held her head high, staring straight ahead into the blinding lights of the cameras, but as she was shoved into the back of the federal transport van, a chilling, triumphant smile suddenly curved her lips.
May you like
Through the tinted glass, she looked back at Elena, who stood on the hospital steps beside Daniel’s gurney. Victoria raised two fingers against the glass—a bizarre, esoteric hand gesture that sent an immediate chill down Elena’s spine.
***
