Chapter 23 - A Sister's Surrender
Elena sat in a rear booth at an all-night diner three miles south of the naval shipyard. The neon sign outside buzzed with a low, irritating hum that mirrored the pressure behind her temples. The vacuum-sealed logbook lay inside a plain leather briefcase between her feet.
The brass bell over the diner door jingled. Victoria walked in, looking like a ghost stripped of her wealth. She wore an oversized hooded sweatshirt, dark sunglasses in the dim fluorescent interior, and sneakers with worn soles. The polished, predatory woman who had torn Elena’s clothes apart in front of an assembly of admirals had evaporated; in her place was a terrified child who had finally realized that the monster she served was hungry enough to eat her, too.
Victoria slid into the booth across from Elena. She didn't speak for nearly a full minute, her fingers nervously picking at a tear in the laminated menu.
"Daniel is going to pin it on me," Victoria said, her voice barely audible above the grumble of the highway outside. "His lawyers drafted an affidavit this afternoon. It claims I forged the quality assurance exemptions using Dad’s old letterhead to speed up the subcontracts."
Elena watched her sister with clinical detachment. "Did you?"
"No!" Victoria looked up, tears cutting tracks through the powder on her cheeks. "I didn't even know what an alloy stress curve was! Elena, please... you have to believe me. When we were kids, Dad always looked at you like you were the real Alden. You had the discipline, you had the academy rank, you had his eyes. I was just the decorative daughter he brought to photo ops. Daniel told me that if I helped him manage the logistics firm, Dad would finally treat me like an equal partner."
"You tore my uniform in half, Victoria," Elena said, her voice ice-cold, free of anger, which made it all the more terrifying. "You stood in front of twenty superior officers and exposed my scars to make me a laughingstock. You told the room I got those burns because I was a coward who ran into a steam blast instead of manning my station."
Victoria buried her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving with ragged sobs. "He told me to do it. He said if we broke your credibility in front of Vance, she wouldn't look into your back pay or your medical records. He knew Vance had the clearance to pull the salvage logs."
"And Dad?" Elena asked, leaning forward, the steel in her voice undeniable. "Where does Arthur fit?"
Victoria reached into the pocket of her oversized hoodie and pulled out an encrypted thumb drive bearing the seal of the Alden Family Trust. She laid it gently on the table and pushed it across the formica with a trembling finger.
"Dad knew the whole time," Victoria whispered. "He didn't just sign the waivers. When the *Resolute* burned, Daniel told him that if the alloy failure was leaked, Arthur would be stripped of his retired rank, his pension, and face court-martial under Article 92. Dad helped Daniel bury the telemetry files on the private trust servers. Everything is on that drive, Elena. The real watch logs. The wire transfers. The emails where Daniel explicitly told Dad that Boiler Room Two was a ticking bomb."
Victoria looked up, her eyes wide with desperate pleading. "Save me, Elena. Please. Daniel’s people are watching my apartment. I don't want to go to prison."
May you like
Elena picked up the drive, feeling the cold weight of absolute betrayal. "You won't go to prison for the fire, Victoria. But you will answer for every lie you ever told under oath. Drink your coffee. Commander Bennett has a security detail waiting in the parking lot."
***
