Chapter 20 - The Unseen Puppet Master
|
The party continued late into the evening inside the glowing glass conservatory.
I stepped away from the crowd for a moment to take a quiet breath near the edge of the rooftop garden, taking in the cool night breeze blowing off the Hudson River.
Declan was inside speaking with a group of city officials, his warm laughter echoing faintly through the glass doors. Everything felt peaceful, victorious, and completely settled.
Then, my phone vibrated in my clutch purse.
I pulled it out, assuming it was a congratulatory text message from one of our corporate clients.
It was an encrypted message sent from an untraceable international number.
I tapped the notification.
The screen flickered black, displaying a single, high-resolution image file accompanied by three short lines of text.
I opened the image.
My breath caught instantly in my throat.
The photo showed an old, yellowed document dated twenty-five years ago—a secret trust agreement between Vanguard Holdings and a foreign holdings group called Aegis Global.
At the bottom of the ancient document were two signatures.
The first signature belonged to my mother, Margo Kensington.
The second signature, bold and unmistakable, belonged to Richard Sterling.
Below the image, the text message read:
You thought you brought down the Sterlings, Sloane. But you only destroyed the front men.
Your mother didn't pull out of the $400M deal because of a slap.
She pulled out because we ordered her to.
Welcome to the real game, Heiress.
My hands began to shake uncontrollably. The ambient noise of the party behind me faded into a muffled, terrifying drone.
I looked up from the screen toward the glass doors of the conservatory.
Across the room, my mother was standing near the bar, sipping her wine. But she wasn't looking at the guests.
She was looking directly through the glass at me, her face completely drained of expression, holding a black encrypted burner phone in her left hand.
A dark, icy chill settled deep into my bones as the night wind howled over the rooftop.
May you like
The war wasn't over.
It had only just begun.
