Chapter 57 - The Arrest in the Capitol
Chaos erupted in the legislative chamber.
Television cameras rushed the brass railings, flashbulbs exploding like fireworks as two armed state marshals marched down the center aisle toward the defense table.
Drew Halston completely broke down. He tried to scramble under the wooden railing toward the exit, knocking over water carafes and leather briefcases, but a six-foot-four state marshal grabbed him by the collar, slamming him face-first onto the polished marble floor.
"Get off me! Let me go!" Drew shrieked, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria as his arms were wrenched behind his back. "Sebastian promised me immunity! He said they couldn't touch me! Sebastian, tell them! Tell them you paid me!"
Sebastian Sterling didn't move a muscle. He didn't even look down at the groveling man pinned against the floor. He sat in his chair, his face cold as marble, his lips curling with pure disgust.
"I have never met this man in my life," Sebastian stated with ice-cold detachment, adjusting his gold cufflinks. "My firm retains independent third-party consultants. If this individual engaged in private fraud, Vanguard Global is an innocent victim of his misrepresentations."
Drew’s jaw dropped. Pinned beneath the marshal's heavy knee, cold steel cuffs clicking around his wrists, Drew stared up at Sebastian in sheer, horrifying disbelief.
"You bastard!" Drew screamed, tears and sweat dripping onto the marble. "You wired the money to Panama! You sent your jet to pick me up! Maren, please! Tell them! Don't let them send me back! I can't do twenty years in federal! Maren!"
I stood behind our wooden table, watching him with calm, quiet detachment. Ten years ago, Drew had looked at me at Boone Hall plantation and told me that leaving me was his smartest decision. He had discarded me like trash, convinced that his wealth and lineage made him untouchable.
Now, he was being dragged down the marble aisle on his knees, discarded by the very billionaire whose boots he had licked.
"You made your choice, Drew," I said softly as he was hauled past our table. "You reap what you sow."
"Take him to the county lockup," Treasurer Morrison ordered the marshals. "The federal probation office has already issued an emergency detainer. He will await trial in federal custody."
As Drew’s pathetic screams faded down the marble corridor, Treasurer Morrison turned his furious gaze directly toward Sebastian Sterling.
"Now, Mr. Sterling," Morrison barked, leaning over his dais. "Your firm attempted to use perjured testimony to destabilize the municipal bond market of this sovereign state. Under the emergency powers granted to this commission, I am rejecting Vanguard’s liquidity demand with prejudice. Furthermore, I am accepting Bennett-Sterling’s one-hundred-million-dollar private liquidity backstop in full."
Treasurer Morrison brought his heavy gavel down with a resounding boom.
"The Thomas Ellis Terminal bonds are hereby retired and placed into permanent municipal trust. Vanguard Global is officially barred from bidding on South Carolina infrastructure contracts for a period of twenty-five years. Court is adjourned!"
The chamber erupted into deafening cheers. Reporters mobbed our table, microphoning every word as union leaders broke through the gallery doors, singing union anthems into the vaulted ceiling.
Sebastian Sterling rose slowly from his seat. His tailored suit was unrumpled, but a dark, murderous fury burned behind his hazel eyes. He stepped past the swarm of reporters, stopping directly in front of Owen and me.
"You think this is over, little brother?" Sebastian whispered, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You won a regional regulatory skirmish in a backward Southern capital. But Vanguard operates in London, Tokyo, and New York. I will bleed your private equity fund dry across fifty global markets. I will take everything you love."
Owen stepped forward, his eyes burning with an authority so profound it made Sebastian flinch.
"You won't bleed anything, Sebastian," Owen said calmly. "Because while you were orchestrating this amateur circus with Drew Halston, our forensics team handed your Zurich banking records to the United States Department of Justice. Look at your phone."
May you like
Sebastian’s phone buzzed in his breast pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and the color instantly drained from his face.
The SEC had just issued an emergency trading halt on Vanguard Global’s master fund.
