Chapter 8 - The Call from Zurich
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"Tell him, Barbara," I commanded, standing up from the porch bench. "Tell your son who he really is."
Barbara collapsed onto the wicker sofa behind her, burying her face in her trembling hands.
"Victor was a dangerous man, Evan," Barbara sobbed, her voice muffled through her fingers. "Thirty years ago, he owned the shipping routes. He was violent, cruel, and he treated me like property! Your real father was a monster!"
"So you helped my father steal his company?" I stepped forward, glaring down at her. "You let my father take the blame for ruining Victor, while you raised Victor's son using my family's money!"
"Your father wanted the company, Clara!" Barbara screamed, looking up with tears streaming down her powdered cheeks. "He was greedy too! He paid me off for twenty years to keep quiet!"
Evan fell to his knees on the glass-strewn porch, clutching his head in utter shock. "My whole life... my name, my business, my marriage... it was all a fake?"
Before anyone could speak, my encrypted phone began to vibrate in my pocket.
An international number.
I answered it and set the speaker to high volume so everyone on the porch could hear.
"Hello, Clara," a deep, cultured voice with an English accent echoed through the speaker. "I see you've finally opened your father's safe deposit box."
The entire porch went dead silent. Barbara froze like a statue.
"Victor Sterling," I said, keeping my voice firm.
"In the flesh," Victor chuckled softly over the line. "Or at least, across the Atlantic for now. I must compliment you, Clara. You have far more steel in your spine than your spineless father ever possessed. And certainly more brains than my pathetic biological son sitting on the porch beside you."
Evan flinched as if he had been struck. "You... you're my father?"
"Genetically, yes," Victor replied coldly. "Functionally, you are an incompetent fool who let a secretary ruin a multi-million-dollar acquisition. But Clara... Clara is interesting."
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"What do you want, Victor?" I asked, stepping toward the railing.
"I want my seventy-two percent back, Clara," Victor said, his tone turning dangerously sharp. "You have forty-eight hours to sign the voting shares over to my offshore trust. If you refuse, I will release thirty years of tax fraud documents that will bankrupt Whitmore Freight and put your late father's legacy in a federal grave."
