Chapter 34 - The Mother’s Reckoning
“A test?” Claire whispered, the air turning venomous between them. “You put a bullet in my husband’s gut… to *test* me?”
“I gave you the ultimate forge!” Genevieve stood up, her emerald silk gown rustling against the flagstones like the scales of a serpent. She stepped toward Claire, her eyes blazing with an intoxicating, terrifying madness. “Look at yourself, Claire! When you were six years old, you cried when an ant died on the terrace! You were soft! You had your father’s pathetic, bleeding heart! If I had kept you with me, the Consortium would have poisoned your milk before you learned long division!”
Genevieve took another step, reaching out a manicured hand to touch Claire’s cheek.
Claire did not flinch, but her eyes locked onto Genevieve’s with an intensity so feral that Genevieve’s hand froze in mid-air.
“I left you with Evan Bennett,” Genevieve hissed, her voice vibrating with manic pride, “because I knew he was a pathetic, insecure, narcissistic beast. I knew he would treat you like a scullery maid. I watched through the quarterly surveillance reports as Victoria made you scrub the grease from the oven. I watched Julian tear up your college acceptance letters. I watched you bleed, Claire! And with every tear you swallowed, the Vance steel grew harder in your spine!”
“You watched?” Claire asked, her knuckles cracking as her fists clenched in her pockets. “You sat in this fortress, sipping tea, watching a twelve-year-old girl freeze in an attic room with no heating, watching a teenager eat leftovers from her brother’s plates?”
“And look what it made you!” Genevieve shouted, throwing her arms wide to encompass the surveillance terminals. “You took down Evan in one night! You outplayed Julian in twenty-four hours! You reclaimed the Vance sovereign throne! No school in Switzerland could have taught you that! I didn't abandon you, Claire—I sculpted you! You are my greatest creation!”
“I am not your creation,” Claire said, each word dropping like a lead weight. “I survived *in spite* of you. I survived because unlike you, I never lost my humanity. You think Evan was a monster? Evan was a common thug with a cheap suit and a small mind. But you… you are a demon who sacrificed her own child on the altar of her vanity.”
Genevieve’s smile vanished, replaced by a mask of cold, imperious fury. “You dare judge me? You stand in my house, built with the blood money I stole from the men who tried to kill us? You think this is over because you married a handsome Italian prince and put Evan in a federal cage? You fool. You didn't come here to confront me, Claire. You came here because I summoned you.”
Genevieve pressed a button on the arm of her chair.
Behind Claire, the heavy oak doors slammed shut. Steel security shutters dropped over the windows, sealing the salon into an impenetrable vault.
“The Consortium is gone, Claire,” Genevieve said quietly, pulling a sleek, chrome automatic pistol from beneath the folds of her emerald gown and aiming it directly at Claire’s forehead. “I used Julian and Victoria to flush out the last of their banking conduits in Milan. The entire global syndicate’s liquid reserves—four billion euros—are currently funneling into a central escrow account. And there is only one authorization left required to transfer it all into my hands.”
Genevieve tilted her head, her gray-green eyes glittering in the halogen glare.
May you like
“The Vance Sovereign biometric keycard in your coat pocket. Hand it over, my darling daughter. Or I will bury you in this grave, take the card from your cold fingers, and tell the world that my tragic daughter died of a broken heart.”
***
