Chapter 59 - The Fall of the Patriarch
The Conclave members began backing away from Arthur Vance as if he were carrying a lethal plague.
"Guards!" Arthur screamed, spinning toward the arched gallery. "Guards, execute them! Execute the traitor!"
Not a single guard moved.
At the rear of the hall, Leo and Maya appeared on the large communication monitors mounted to the stone pillars. Leo’s voice echoed throughout the vaulted hall with sovereign authority:
"All Vance Private Security contractor payments have been rerouted through Sovereign Escrow Node Four. Captain Alexander Vance is now recognized as Supreme Commander of Vance Global Security. Anyone who raises a weapon against Katherine Vance will have their pensions liquidated and their identities forwarded to Interpol."
The guards in the gallery slowly lowered their weapons, unhooked their tactical vests, and stepped back against the walls.
Arthur stared at them in utter disbelief. His ebony cane slipped from his trembling, spotted fingers, clattering loudly against the flagstones.
"No..." he gasped, clutching his chest as a sudden, sharp pain seized his failing heart. "No... sixty years... I spent sixty years forging the Sovereign Throne..."
"And you built it on the suffering of women and children," I said, walking toward him until I stood over him as he sank to one knee, exactly as Eleanor had in London.
"Katherine..." Arthur wheezed, looking up at me, his pale blue eyes wide with desperate terror. "The children... they have my mind... they need my guidance... without me, the eastern syndicates will swallow them whole..."
"My children don't need a monster to guide them," I replied cold and clear. "They have their mother."
Two German federal officers, escorted by Interpol agents, stepped through the grand entryway, carrying a federal indictment warrant signed by the International Criminal Court.
"Arthur Vance," the lead inspector announced. "You are under arrest for crimes against humanity, global racketeering, and thirty counts of international biological trafficking."
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As the cold steel handcuffs clicked around Arthur Vance's wrists, he looked back at me one last time, his face contorted in a mask of pure, impotent rage.
"You think this is over, Katherine?!" he snarled, coughing violently as they dragged him toward the door. "You think you won?! You opened the Obsidian Vault... you triggered the secondary protocol! He knows! He's already coming for them!"
