Chapter 5 - The Ledger of the Past
Isaac looked between his father and the five men standing in his foyer. "Dad? Who are these people? What is he talking about?"
Arthur didn't answer his son. He couldn't. His eyes were wide with a deep, primal terror that I had never seen in him before.
Twenty years ago, before Arthur Vance built Vance Global Construction into a billion-dollar enterprise, he was a subcontractor working out of the South Brooklyn docks. And back then, the South Brooklyn docks didn't belong to the city.
They belonged to the Sterlings.
My father, Thomas Sterling, had run the freight terminals, the labor unions, and the private security for every shipping line from Red Hook to Bay Ridge. My brothers hadn't grown up in country clubs; they had grown up learning how to hold territory, how to enforce contracts, and how to make sure debts were paid in full.
When I married Isaac, I had deliberately hidden my family name, using my mother’s maiden name on our marriage certificate and keeping my brothers at a distance. I wanted a quiet life. I wanted to believe that the polite society of the upper class was safer than the world I grew up in.
I was wrong.
Noah walked slowly across the ballroom, his eyes dropping to my bruised, red wrists.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Julian," Noah said without turning his head.
Julian Sterling stepped forward, opening his leather briefcase. He pulled out a thick stack of legal documents and laid them casually on the head table, right next to my birthday cake.
"Arthur Vance," Julian said, his tone smooth and professional, like a judge reading a verdict. "For the past six months, my firm has been auditing the municipal bids for the Hudson River Pier project. We found thirty-four instances of wire fraud, forty million dollars in offshore shell account transfers, and structural concrete falsifications that carry a mandatory federal sentence of twenty-five years."
Arthur swallowed hard, his chest heaving. "Julian... we had an agreement... your father and I—"
"Our father is dead, Arthur," Leo Sterling interrupted, his voice like grinding stones. "And his agreements died with him."
Marcus Sterling pulled out a dark leather ledger from his inner jacket pocket. "We didn't come here tonight for your corporate fraud, Arthur. We knew about that six months ago. We were going to let the Feds take you in the spring."
Marcus looked directly at Isaac.
"Then your pathetic excuse for a son touched our sister."
Isaac stepped back, his confidence vanishing as he looked at the five imposing figures surrounding him. "Listen here... this is my house! You're trespassing! Security!"
The two private security guards who had tied my wrists were standing near the terrace doors. They looked at Noah Sterling, then at the four heavy-set men in black tactical gear who had just stepped through the broken front doors behind my brothers.
The guards dropped their wooden batons onto the floor and raised their hands in the air.
"Smart," Caleb murmured, stepping past them to stand beside me.
Caleb gently reached out, taking my injured hand in his. He looked at the deep red welts around my wrists, his jaw muscles clenching so hard a vein throbbed at his temple.
"Who tied the knots, Flora?" Caleb asked softly.
I pointed a trembling finger at the lead guard. "He did. On Isaac’s orders."
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Caleb turned his head slowly toward the guard. "Leave the state of New York by midnight. If I see your face in this city tomorrow, you won't walk again."
The guard didn't argue. He turned and sprinted out the rear service exit.
