Chapter 7 - The Confrontation in the Library
Victoria did not look at her driver as he confessed on the floor. She didn't flinch, she didn't gasp, and she didn't offer a single word of defense.
She slowly leaned back in her high-backed leather chair, picked up her gold fountain pen, and capped it with a crisp, deliberate click.
“Get up, Julian,” she said softly, her voice entirely devoid of panic. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
Her two attorneys were already backing toward the library doors, their briefcases held tightly against their chests, their faces grey with the sudden realization that they were standing in the middle of an attempted murder investigation involving an organized crime family.
“Gentlemen,” Gideon said, without turning his head toward the lawyers. “If you leave this room before the state police arrive, I will personally ensure that your law firm’s offshore trust accounts in Zurich are frozen by noon today.”
The two lawyers stopped instantly, their boots frozen on the parquet floor near the door.
Gideon walked slowly around the mahogany desk until he was standing directly in front of his sister. He looked down at her with an expression that was neither angry nor sad; it was the look of a man who had finally confirmed a long-suspected, tragic truth.
“Victoria,” Gideon said quietly. “Why?”
Victoria looked up at her brother, her head tilted slightly, a small, cold smile touching the corners of her dark red lips.
“Why?” she repeated, her tone surprisingly conversational. “Because I spent thirty-four years watching our father treat you like a king and me like an expensive ornament, Gideon. Because I built the logistics network that paid for his shipping fleets while he left ninety percent of the voting stock in your name.”
“The stock was held in trust for both of us,” Gideon said.
“The trust required father’s signature to distribute!” Victoria spat, her composure cracking for the first time as her eyes flashed with pure venom. “And he refused to sign it! He sat in that bed for fourteen months, unable to speak, unable to run the business, holding onto the company out of sheer, senile spite while you let him rot in that west wing!”
“He wasn't rotting,” I interrupted, stepping closer to the desk. “He was recovering. His cognitive tests proved he was improving every week.”
Victoria turned her icy gaze toward me. “Shut up, you pathetic little peasant. You were hired to change his sheets and clean his suction tubes, not to give legal opinions on my family’s estate.”
“She saved his life today, Victoria,” Gideon said, his voice dropping into an iron whisper that vibrated through the floorboards. “And she did it while holding a broken wrist that your driver caused on your orders.”
Gideon reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small black encrypted radio, and pressed the side button once.
“Marcus,” Gideon said into the transmitter. “Bring the state police detail up the main driveway. Escort Miss Victoria and her driver to the holding room in the security lodge.”
Victoria stood up slowly, smoothing the skirt of her cream wool dress with her palms. She didn't look at her weeping driver on the floor. She pulled her crocodile-skin handbag from the desk, draped her mink coat over her forearm, and looked her brother dead in the eye.
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“You think this ends today, Gideon?” she whispered, leaning over the desk until her face was inches from his. “The lieutenants won't follow you without father’s seal. Half the terminal union leaders report directly to my managers. By next week, the docks will be closed, the ships will be idling in the bay, and you’ll be sitting in this empty stone house with an old man who can't even tell you his own name.”
“He doesn't need to tell me his name, Victoria,” Gideon replied, looking past her toward the open library door where four state troopers were entering, led by his security director. “He already wrote it down on the eye-tracking chart an hour ago.”
