Chapter 7 - The Trap is Set
At five o'clock that evening, Victoria Sterling received a text message directly from Julian’s private phone.
*‘Come to the townhouse at six. Alone. Richard and Arthur’s terms are acceptable. Let’s sign the nondisclosure agreements and settle this before the evening news cycle.’*
Victoria let out a loud, triumphant laugh in the middle of her empty penthouse.
“I knew it,” she sneered, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she applied fresh crimson lipstick. “They always break. When you threaten their precious reputation, they always crawl back on their knees.”
She believed she had won. In her mind, Julian was terrified of the scandal, terrified of Eleanor’s name being dragged through the mud, and desperate to protect his company’s stock valuation. Men like Julian Vance, she thought, were governed by spreadsheets and public perception. They didn't have the stomach for a war in the gutter.
Victoria put on a sleek black Saint Laurent coat, slipped the flash drive into her designer purse, and walked out to hail a town car.
When she arrived at the East 74th Street townhouse, the street was strangely quiet. There were no paparazzi, no news vans, no flashing police lights. Just the elegant limestone facade of the mansion, bathed in the amber glow of the setting sun.
Victoria walked up the grand stone steps and pushed open the front door. It wasn't locked.
“Julian?” she called out, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor of the grand foyer.
The house was completely silent. The chandeliers were dimmed to a warm, low amber.
“Julian, darling, I’m here,” Victoria said, walking toward the formal library at the end of the hall. “I’m glad you came to your senses. We can announce that Lily has been enrolled in a prestigious healing retreat in Vermont. It will make you look compassionate, and it will give us time to reconstruct the narrative—”
She pushed open the heavy double mahogany doors of the library.
Sitting behind the massive leather-topped desk was Julian Vance.
He was not wearing a suit. He wore a simple black sweater, his arms crossed over the desk. Beside him stood Marcus Cole. And seated in the corner leather wingback chairs were two men Victoria recognized immediately: Detective Miller from the NYPD Special Victims Unit, and Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Vance-Chen, Julian’s first cousin and one of the most ruthless federal prosecutors in the state of New York.
Victoria stopped dead in her tracks.
The color drained from her face for the second time in twenty-four hours.
“Julian?” Victoria whispered, her hand instinctively tightening around the strap of her purse. “What is this?”
“Take a seat, Victoria,” Julian said calmly.
“I will not,” Victoria hissed, taking a step backward toward the library doors. “If this is an ambush, Julian, you are making the biggest mistake of your life. Tyler Cross already has the files. One phone call from me, and Eleanor’s disgusting secrets will be on every phone in America!”
Sarah Vance-Chen stood up from the wingback chair, holding a manila folder with the Department of Justice seal stamped across the front.
“Tyler Cross isn't publishing anything, Miss Sterling,” Sarah said smoothly. “Mr. Cross turned state's evidence three hours ago in exchange for immunity regarding your extortion scheme. He handed over every text message, every wire transfer request, and every doctored audio file you sent him.”
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. “That’s impossible.”
“What’s more interesting,” Marcus Cole added, stepping forward with a remote control, “is what we found when we executed a search warrant on your penthouse an hour ago.”
Marcus clicked the remote.
The fifty-inch monitor mounted above the library fireplace blinked to life.
It wasn't footage from the gala. It was footage from the basement of the Vance townhouse from three weeks ago.
The high-definition night-vision camera inside the wine cellar clearly showed Victoria dragging a sobbing, terrified Lily down the concrete stairs, throwing her onto the cold floor, and turning off the light before locking the steel deadbolt. The audio was sickeningly clear:
*‘Cry all you want, you little parasite. Nobody can hear you down here. Your mother died because she couldn't stand looking at you, and Daddy is going to marry me and leave you behind.’*
Victoria’s knees buckled. She had to grab the edge of an antique bookcase to keep from collapsing onto the floor.
“Where… where did you get that?” Victoria stammered, her voice shaking violently. “There were no cameras in the cellar.”
May you like
“I installed them the day Eleanor died,” Julian said, standing up from behind the desk. His voice was steady, terrifying, and devoid of any human warmth. “I installed security throughout this entire house to keep my family safe. I never imagined the monster I needed to protect them from would be sleeping in my own bed.”
***
