Chapter 87 - The Architect Behind the Curtain
"Why?" I asked aloud, staring at the ticker tape that bore the execution orders against Richard’s private offshore trust. "Why expend this much capital to ensure the total obliteration of a minor family like the Vances?"
"Because Richard Vance was never meant to be your husband," a dry, aristocratic voice echoed from the shadowed entrance of the ticker room.
Julian moved with lethal speed, his firearm drawn and leveled at the intruder in a fraction of a second.
Standing at the base of the stairs was an elderly man dressed in a bespoke charcoal three-piece suit, leaning on a silver-topped cane. His silver hair was swept back impeccably, his face carved with lines of sharp intellect and deep fatigue.
"Lower the weapon, Julian," the man said smoothly, raising one gloved hand. "If I intended harm to Leopold’s granddaughter, she would never have crossed the border at Le Bourget."
"Arthur Pendelton," Julian murmured, keeping the weapon raised by half an inch. "Chief Legal Counsel to the Whitaker Senior Trust. You were reported dead in a yachting accident off the coast of Corsica five years ago."
"My death was an administrative necessity," Arthur replied, walking slowly toward us. He stopped three paces away, inclining his head respectfully to me. "Eleanor. You look so much like Marianne it is nearly painful to bear witness."
"Speak quickly, Arthur," I commanded, refusing to let my composure waver. "What did you mean when you said Richard was never meant to be my husband?"
"Your father arranged that marriage, Eleanor," Arthur explained, his tone heavy with regret. "Your father was a weak man, dazzled by Victoria Vance’s social pedigree and Richard’s superficial charm. But Victoria Vance knew something she should never have known. She had acquired a piece of the nineteen eighty-nine transport logs. She used it to blackmail your father into consenting to the union, intending to slowly siphon the Whitaker estate into Vance Capital over a twenty-year horizon."
The pieces locked together like the teeth of a steel trap.
"And Richard thought he was a conqueror," I said, a cold, bitter smile touching my lips. "He thought he was discarding an inconvenient wife so he could parade Sloane Avery in front of society, completely unaware that his mother had sold their entire family into a war they didn't even understand."
May you like
"Precisely," Arthur agreed. "Victoria believed she had trapped the Whitaker heir. But Genevieve watched from the shadows, waiting for the moment the Vances overplayed their hand. That night at the Plaza—when Richard handed you those divorce papers—he signed their death warrant. Not yours."
***
