Chapter 96 - The Vault of Lutheran General
"Eleanor, put the gun down," Thomas said coldly, walking to the foot of the stairs as if she were holding nothing more dangerous than a butter knife. "You're embarrassing yourself. Julian has agreed to clear the LaSalle hold. Open the study vault."
Eleanor let out a shrieking laugh that echoed violently off the chandeliers.
"Open the vault?" she screamed, descending the stairs one step at a time, the revolver wavering wildly between Thomas and me. "So you can take Margaret's bearer bonds and fly off to Geneva with your Swiss mistresses? Leaving me with the federal indictments? Leaving me to rot in an orange jumpsuit while the country clubs laugh at my ruin?"
She stopped on the fourth step from the bottom, her eyes wild, locking onto Beatrice.
"And you!" Eleanor hissed at her daughter. "You pathetic, whining little parasite! You let Julian turn you against me? After everything I sacrificed to keep you in private schools? After I spent twenty years pretending this bastard child was my own flesh and blood so you could have a Vance trust fund?"
Beatrice flinched, but she didn't cower. She took a step forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me.
"You didn't sacrifice anything for me, Mom," Beatrice said, her voice trembling but clear. "You sacrificed Julian. You spent thirty years poisoning my head because you couldn't stand looking at him. You couldn't stand remembering that Dad loved his mother, and that you were just an empty signature on a fraudulent escrow account!"
Eleanor’s face contorted into an ugly, savage snarl. "His mother was a lunatic! A weak, pathetic heiress who couldn't handle the pressure of her own family name! Thomas chose *me*! He chose my pedigree! He promised me that boy would be our ticket to the Sterling sovereign line!"
"And you failed, Eleanor," Thomas said with utter contempt. "You threw a temper tantrum over a seventy-two-thousand-dollar wedding gift and blew our entire architecture wide open. You let Julian audit the escrow node. If you had just stayed silent, the notary protocol would have completed quietly next month."
"Shut up! Both of you, shut up!" I roared, stepping into the center of the foyer. The sheer volume of my voice, sharpened by decades of suppressed rage, echoed like thunder, freezing both Thomas and Eleanor in their tracks.
"Where is Margaret?" I demanded, turning on Thomas. "You said she was in transit. Where is she?"
Thomas smiled thinly and raised his left hand, snapping his fingers twice.
The side door to the parlor opened. Two of Thomas’s private security guards stepped through, supporting an elderly woman between them.
The breath left my lungs in an agonizing rush.
She was frail, dressed in a simple, oversized wool coat and dark trousers. Her hair was silver, streaked with remnants of chestnut, cut short around a face that bore the unmistakable, unmistakable architectural contours of my own. The high cheekbones. The sharp, straight nose. The wide, intelligent grey eyes that looked around the cavernous foyer with quiet, weary dignity.
She looked past the guards, past Thomas, past Eleanor’s gun, and stopped when her eyes found mine.
"Julian," she whispered.
May you like
The sound of my name on her lips broke something ancient and calcified inside my chest. It wasn't the manic, transactional screech of Eleanor, nor the cold, detached command of Thomas. It was the voice of a mother who had carried a ghost inside her heart for thirty years.
"Margaret," Thomas interrupted brutally, stepping between us. "The pleasantries can wait. Julian, the study. Open the terminal. Initiate the biometric scan. Now."
