Chapter 82 - The Broken Scion
The downdraft died down, leaving only the relentless patter of rain against the shattered parapets of Floor 80. The rooftop smelled of burning aviation fuel, cordite, and copper.
On the wet deck, Tristan lay curled in the fetal position, his face swollen and bloody where Arthur's cane had fractured his cheekbone. The arrogant, untouchable heir who had once tossed a twelve-million-dollar buyout contract into my face and told me to crawl away like a dog was now whimpering in the puddle of his own filth.
Alexander lowered his rifle, but his posture remained coiled like a tripwire. His jaw was clenched so hard the tendons in his neck looked like cables.
"Secure him," I commanded, my voice devoid of any warmth. "Tie him to the stairwell stanchion. He doesn't bleed out until he talks."
Alexander’s security operators surged forward, dragging Tristan up by the collar of his ruined Brioni coat. Tristan screamed as they zip-tied his wrists behind his back with reinforced polymer cuffs, shoving him against the steel bulkhead beneath the stairwell awning.
"Katherine! Please!" Tristan choked out, blood dripping from his chin onto his soaked shirt. "You don't understand what he is! You don't know what he did! He'll kill us all! He doesn't want Vanguard Tower... he doesn't want the banks! He wants the bloodline!"
I stepped in front of him, rain dripping from the barrel of my weapon, looking down at the creature who had once been my husband.
"You were so proud of being an heir, Tristan," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "You spent seven years treating me like a breeding surrogate, telling me I was beneath the great Vance dynasty. And all this time, you weren't even his flesh. You were a decoy. A clown he kept on the stage to distract the world while he vanished into the shadows."
Tristan’s eyes darted frantically, filled with an animal panic. "He knew about Eleanor's affair thirty years ago! He always knew! He let her raise me as the heir because he knew when the collapse came, I would take the fall! He used me as meat for the wolves!"
"And you brought that meat straight to my doorstep," I whispered, leaning in until my eyes were inches from his. "Where is he taking Eleanor? Where is his real base?"
"The North Sea..." Tristan gasped, his teeth chattering uncontrollably from shock and hypothermia. "The ghost facilities... Project Obsidian wasn't an investment fund, Katherine. It was a private military platform built on a decommissioned oil rig off the coast of Aberdeen. That’s where he ran the shadow accounts. That's where he stored the biometric keys!"
Before I could press the barrel deeper under his chin, the comm-link in my ear crackled to life with a frantic burst of static.
"Mom!"
It was Liam’s voice. My eldest son. He sounded breathless, the keyboard clatter behind him echoing like machine-gun fire.
"Liam, report," I snapped instantly, my maternal instincts overriding every drop of adrenaline. "Are you and your brothers safe? Where is Mia?"
"Mom, Base Alpha’s perimeter monitors just tripped," Liam said, his voice taut with a discipline far beyond his nine years. "A ghost satellite just redirected a high-bandwidth military signal directly into our local grid. Someone is overriding our firewalls from the outside. They aren't trying to steal money, Mom..."
"What are they doing, Liam?"
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"They're triangulating our physical bunker coordinates," Liam replied. "And the signature on the military encryption... Mom, it bears the Vance family seal."
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