Chapter 27 - the master of the web
"Step away from the table, Julian," Roman commanded, his gun leveled directly between Julian's eyes. "Hands where I can see them, or this ends right here."
Julian slowly raised his hands, but his face twisted into a grotesque, hysterical grimace of mingled fear and venom. "You think you've won, Mercer? You think bringing down the Sterling holding company made you the king of this city? You don't know anything! Neither of you do!"
"Who sent the woman in the velvet gown, Julian?" Clara demanded, her voice ringing with pure fury. "Who has my mother's photograph? Who hired those men upstairs?"
Julian let out a ragged, trembling sob that turned into a manic laugh. "You still think this is about Vance? Gregory was a puppet, Clara! A bloated, arrogant distraction! He took the fall because he was stupid enough to think he was running the operation!"
"Then who is running it?" Roman took a measured step forward, the muzzle of his pistol never straying. "Speak, Julian, before I let those men upstairs breach that hatch and find you with all the cash."
Julian pointed a shaking finger at the laptop screen. "She's not dead, Clara. But she didn't fake her death to escape my father or yours. She faked it because she built this syndicate forty years ago! She founded the shadow accounts! She funded Gregory! She funded Roman’s father before he was murdered!"
Clara froze, the air vanishing from the cavernous chamber. "What are you saying?"
"The woman upstairs isn't an imposter, you idiot," Julian screamed, his voice cracking against the damp stone walls. "She's Eleanor’s decoy! The real Eleanor Sterling is standing on the dock right now, boarding the freighter to international waters with the last eight hundred million dollars of your family trust!"
Before Roman could react, a massive blast shook the limestone ceiling above them. The iron hatch at the tunnel's entrance gave way under a heavy thermite charge, raining burning metal down the stone steps.
Through the subterranean smoke, heavy combat boots echoed at an aggressive sprint toward the chamber.
At the exact same instant, the laptop screen on Julian's table chirped with an incoming video feed. A live video clicked open, revealing the bridge of a massive cargo vessel cutting through the midnight fog of Lake Michigan. Standing at the helm, dressed in a pristine white trench coat and holding a champagne flute toward the camera, was an older woman with identical emerald eyes—and a faint, unmistakable silver scar across her right collarbone.
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She smiled coldly directly into the camera lens, raised her glass in a mocking salute, and pressed a crimson button mounted beside the steering console.
Deep beneath their feet, the limestone floor of the boathouse chamber groaned, and the smell of industrial explosives filled the air.
