Chapter 5 - Chloe wanted me there
We found Chloe before dawn.
She hadn't fled.
She was sitting calmly inside her office.
Waiting.
“You humiliated my daughter.”
“Yes.”
Victor moved toward her.
I stopped him.
“Why?”
“To make you call him.”
She looked at Victor.
My brother stared back.
“You wanted Vivienne to call me?”
“I needed all three brothers activated.”
Chloe had spent seven years positioning herself beside Dominic.
Not as his lover.
As his handler.
“Who do you work for?”
She smiled sadly.
“Your father.”
“He's dead.”
“That's what he wanted you to believe.”
The room became utterly silent.
Then Chloe corrected herself.
“Was what he wanted you to believe.”
She claimed our father, Charles Sterling, survived the plane crash that supposedly killed him eleven years earlier.
He lived another six years.
Secretly.
Even my brothers hadn't known.
“Why?”
“Because somebody inside Sterling was trying to kill him.”
Victor scoffed.
“Who?”
“He never discovered it.”
Before his actual death five years earlier, Charles created a contingency.
S7.
It collected transaction patterns from every major Sterling-controlled entity.
Not money.
Evidence.
It was designed to identify whoever was siphoning assets from inside the empire.
Dominic became involved accidentally when Vanguard was used as a conduit.
Then why was I the trigger?
Chloe looked at me.
“Because your father trusted your brothers with his fortune.”
A pause.
“But he trusted only you with the truth.”
That didn't feel flattering.
It felt terrifying.
“Where is S7?”
Chloe looked toward Sophia's paper necklace, now sitting on my desk.
“Closer than you think.”
I picked it up.
Glitter.
Paper hearts.
Cheap string.
Nothing.
Then Chloe said:
“Your daughter didn't make that alone.”
I froze.
“Who helped her?”
“Dominic did.”
No.
Sophia had told me she made it at school.
I turned toward him.
Dominic looked genuinely confused.
“I've never seen that necklace before tonight.”
Then I examined the largest glitter heart.
Something rigid was hidden beneath the paper.
Victor carefully opened it.
May you like
Inside was a microSD card.
My daughter had unknowingly walked into the gala carrying S7.
