Chapter 8 - The Reckoning
Detective Miller stepped forward, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his utility belt.
“Victoria Sterling, you are under arrest for felony child endangerment, unlawful imprisonment, assault in the second degree, and attempted grand larceny.”
“No! You can’t arrest me!” Victoria screamed, backing up against the mahogany door, her eyes wild with panic. “Arthur! My father will destroy all of you! Do you know who we are? We are the Sterlings!”
“Your father was arrested forty minutes ago at JFK airport trying to board a private jet to Zurich,” Sarah Vance-Chen stated with cold precision. “He has been indicted on twelve counts of federal securities fraud and money laundering. The Sterling assets have been frozen by the federal government. You don't have a lawyer, Victoria. You don't have a trust fund. And by tomorrow morning, you won't even have bail.”
Victoria looked at Julian, her face contorting into an expression of desperate, feral rage.
“You ruined me!” she shrieked, lunging forward, her manicured fingers clawing at the air. “You and that pathetic, whining brat! She deserved that slap! She deserved worse! She was in my way! One hundred and twenty million dollars, Julian! She’s seven years old! What does a child need with that kind of money when my family was starving?!”
Detective Miller grabbed Victoria’s arm, twisting it behind her back with practiced efficiency. The steel handcuffs clicked shut around her wrists with a sharp, final snap.
“Victoria Sterling, you have the right to remain silent,” Miller recited as he pushed her forward. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
As Victoria was escorted through the grand foyer, Maria stood near the dining room doorway, holding a white linen napkin, watching with tears of quiet vindication in her eyes.
Victoria thrashed against the detective’s grip, her hair falling into her face, her designer coat slipping off her shoulder. “Julian! Julian, tell them to stop! You loved me! You told me you loved me!”
Julian walked out into the foyer, stopping at the base of the grand staircase.
“I loved an illusion,” Julian said, his voice echoing clear and cold. “You are nothing.”
The heavy front doors swung open.
Outside on the street, the silence had disappeared.
Over fifty journalists, flashing camera lights, and three major network broadcast vans were waiting behind police barricades. The news of the federal indictments and Victoria’s arrest had broken across the wire services ten minutes earlier.
As Detective Miller led the handcuffed Victoria Sterling down the grand stone steps of the townhouse, the night erupted in blinding flashes of white light. Microphones were shoved forward. Reporters shouted over one another:
“Miss Sterling! Did you stage the robbery at the Plaza?!”
“Victoria! Comment on the federal fraud charges against your father?!”
“Did you abuse Julian Vance’s daughter?!”
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Victoria tried to duck her head, hiding her face behind her disheveled blond hair, but the cameras caught every single angle of her disgrace. The woman who had ruled Manhattan society from the center of ballroom galas was pushed into the back of an NYPD squad car, the door slamming shut, locking her away in the dark.
***
