Chapter 7: Enter Julian Vance
Chapter 7: Enter Julian Vance
Julian Vance did not look like a bureaucratic state prosecutor. He walked into my office with a calm, predatory grace. He was tall, mid-thirties, with dark hair dusted with silver at the temples, and piercing gray eyes that seemed to catalog every detail of the room in a single glance. He carried a single leather briefcase.
"Mr. Sterling," Julian said, giving my father a respectful nod before turning those intense gray eyes directly to me. "Miss Sterling. It’s an honor. Though I wish it were under better circumstances."
"Mr. Vance," I said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm, warm, and entirely steady. "My father tells me you usually don't handle cases like mine."
"Your case isn't just a domestic battery case, Miss Sterling," Julian said, taking a seat across from my desk. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a file. "Matthew Hayes didn't just assault you. Our financial forensic team has been working closely with your father's investigators. We’ve discovered that for the past eighteen months, Hayes and his mistress, Lauren Thorne, have been laundering money out of NexusCore into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Over forty million dollars."
I froze. "Forty million? I knew he was spending money on her, but forty million?"
"He was preparing to dump you, liquidate the company's intellectual property, and flee the country," Julian explained, his voice dipping into a low, gravelly tone that held a promise of absolute retribution. "The assault happened because you found the Hamptons property tax notice. You caught him before he could finalize the transfer. He wasn't just venting anger, Clare. He was trying to silence his co-founder."
A cold chill ran down my spine, but it didn't paralyze me. It solidified into iron.
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"What's the strategy, Mr. Vance?" I asked.
Julian leaned forward, a dangerous smile touching his lips. "We don't offer a plea bargain. We charge them both under the RICO act for corporate conspiracy, alongside the felony assault. I’m going to put Matthew Hayes behind bars for twenty years, and Lauren Thorne right next to him."
