Chapter 62 - The Prodigal Vulture
The silence in the boardroom was absolute.
Owen stood up slowly, towering over Damian Sterling with the terrifying calm of an apex predator defending his territory. "Sebastian’s son. I was wondering when the next generation of parasites would crawl out of the woodwork."
Damian didn't flinch. Instead, he smiled—a practiced, icy smile that carried all of his father’s entitlement, refined by an elite Ivy League education. He withdrew his hand casually and adjusted the platinum watch on his wrist.
"Please, Uncle Owen," Damian chuckled softly, pulling out a leather chair and sitting down without waiting for an invitation. "Let's not indulge in family dramatics. My father was a dinosaur who believed in sledgehammers and brute force. Paying off Drew Halston was pathetic. Sponsoring clumsy media hit-pieces was embarrassing. I have no interest in my father’s crude vendettas, nor do I care that he’s spending the next quarter-century in Terre Haute."
"Then why are you in Charleston, Damian?" I asked, stepping up beside Owen, my voice ringing with cold authority.
Damian turned his gaze to me, his green eyes calculating and dismissive. "I am here for business, Maren. Obsidian Crest manages institutional sovereign wealth funds. We don't care about personal feuds. What we care about is yield. And the Cooper River Rail Link is the most undervalued piece of strategic infrastructure on the North American continent."
He laid a bound legal portfolio on the table.
"The 1894 charter stipulates that if the railroad’s operating volume exceeds ten million tons annually—which your harbor expansion achieved last month—the underlying landowner retains the unilateral right to renegotiate the transit tariff. Obsidian Crest is raising the transit fee from twelve dollars a container to one hundred and fifty dollars a container."
Jonathan Vance gasped. "That is an eleven-hundred-percent increase! That would bankrupt every independent logistics carrier in the state!"
"Then they can pass the cost to the consumers," Damian shrugged, unbothered. "Or better yet, Bennett-Sterling can purchase the underlying land lease from Obsidian Crest for an immediate cash disbursement of two hundred million dollars."
"And if we refuse your extortion?" Owen asked quietly.
Damian stood up, buttoning his jacket with crisp elegance. "If you refuse, our engineering crews will begin 'scheduled track maintenance' at midnight tonight. The switches will be locked. The trains will stop running. The shipping lines will redirect their vessels to Norfolk and Savannah. And within one week, the Thomas Ellis Terminal will be an empty, multi-million-dollar monument to your stubbornness."
Damian picked up his briefcase, looking at me with a smirk that was sickeningly familiar. "You have until six o'clock this evening to sign the tariff agreement, Maren. Unlike my father, I don't bluff."
As Damian walked out of the boardroom, Arthur Crowley slammed his fist onto the credenza. "That arrogant whelp! He’s trying to hold the entire state economy hostage!"
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"He’s using an 1894 charter," I said, my mind already dissecting every syllable Damian had spoken. "Jonathan, pull the original handwritten state legislative records from 1894. Every railroad charter passed in this state during the reconstruction era had a public utility clause. Damian thinks he found a loophole, but he forgot that Lowcountry history is written in the details."
Owen wrapped his arm around my waist, his eyes blazing with protective fury. "We have eight hours before his midnight deadline, Maren. Let's make sure Damian Sterling learns the same lesson his father did."
