Chapter 10 - The Counter-Strike
The private boardroom of the Banque Privée de Genève was located on the top floor of a gleaming glass tower overlooking Lake Geneva.
At 11:00 AM, Douglas Sterling, vice-chairman of Thorne Enterprises, sat at the head of the conference table alongside Arthur Bennett. Arthur was smirking, a glass of expensive scotch in hand, reviewing what he believed was an emergency shareholder proxy agreement that would strip Julian Thorne of his voting power due to 'incapacitation.'
The heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open without warning.
Arthur Bennett froze, his drink halfway to his mouth. Douglas Sterling turned white as paper.
Julian strode into the room, tall, imperious, and radiating lethal power. And walking right beside him, dressed in an immaculate ivory pantsuit, her chin held high, was me. Behind us walked four Swiss federal prosecutors and two armed cantonal police officers.
"Douglas," Julian said, his voice echoing in the dead quiet of the room. "Arthur. You look disappointed to see me."
"J-Julian..." Sterling stammered, dropping his pen. "We heard... there were reports of a catastrophic incident at your estate..."
"Reports you paid half a million francs to orchestrate," Julian replied coldly, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table and motioning for me to sit beside him.
I leaned forward, placing a thick leather dossier directly in front of Arthur Bennett.
"What is this?" Arthur snapped, trying to summon the arrogant southern patriarch persona that had terrified me for years. "Claire, you ungrateful little tramp, you have no standing here—"
"Shut your mouth, Arthur," I interrupted, my voice cracking like a whip. The raw authority in my tone made the old man physically flinch. "Inside that folder are the decrypted bank logs from your family’s offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands. Every single wire transfer you sent to Douglas Sterling to falsify corporate records, and every payment made to the private military firm that assaulted Villa Fiorita last night."
Arthur’s face turned from red to an ashen, sickly gray. "You... you can't prove that."
"The Swiss authorities already did," the lead prosecutor announced, stepping forward with arrest warrants. "Douglas Sterling, Arthur Bennett, you are under arrest for corporate espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and international money laundering."
As the Swiss officers snapped steel handcuffs around Arthur Bennett's wrists, the old man looked at me with venom in his eyes.
"Richard will never let you go, Claire!" Arthur hissed as they dragged him toward the door. "He will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"
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Julian stood up, towering over the broken old man. "Richard won't be hunting anyone, Arthur. He’s already being transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary. And as for you... you will die in a prison cell."
***
