Chapter 4 - The Sterling Empire
Six minutes and forty seconds later, two matte-black Cadillac Escalades roared up the snow-covered lane, tires gripping the icy asphalt with violent precision. Four men in dark tactical overcoats stepped out, flanking the gate.
A tall man with silver hair and an impeccable trench coat emerged from the passenger side of the lead vehicle—Marcus Vance? No. Thomas Cross, my father’s personal chief of security for twenty-five years.
"Miss Sterling," Thomas said, his face tightening into granite as he saw my split lip and the chemical burns blistering through my soaked collar. "Your father has a trauma team waiting at the penthouse. Step inside, please."
"Thank you, Thomas," I said, stepping into the heated sanctuary of the SUV.
As the convoy peeled out toward Manhattan, Thomas handed me a clean woolen blanket and a secure satellite phone. The screen was already glowing with an incoming video link. When I tapped it, my father’s face filled the display.
Arthur Sterling sat in his high-backed leather chair inside the Sterling Tower penthouse, high above the glowing grid of New York City. At sixty-two, he possessed the jawline of an emperor and eyes that had made Wall Street titans weep in closed-door arbitrations.
When he saw my face on the screen, his fingers tightened around his crystal tumbler so hard I thought he would shatter it just as Eleanor had. But unlike Eleanor, Arthur’s fury was quiet, cold, and calculated.
"Who did this to you?" he asked, his tone deceptively level.
"Eleanor threw scalding bisque at me and slapped me," I said, staring at my reflection in the dark window. "Julian watched. Then he told me to apologize for ruining Christmas."
A terrifying calm washed over Arthur’s features. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the antique desk.
"Three years ago, Claire, you begged me to let you marry that boy under an assumed background. You wanted to know if a man could love you for your soul, not the Sterling name or the thirty billion dollars tied to our trust."
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"I know," I murmured, shame burning worse than the soup.
"You proved your point," Arthur said softly, his voice softening with pure tenderness. "He loved an illusion of a meek girl he could control. But that game is over now. You are Claire Sterling, the executive vice president of Sterling Global, and tomorrow morning, the Vance family discovers what happens when you strike a sleeping dragon."
