Chapter 109 - The Currency of Flesh
"What are you talking about?" Vance growled, stepping slightly forward, his scarred face twisted in contempt.
Victoria raised a single, manicured hand, and her operators kept their weapons perfectly leveled.
"The Sterling network is not a company, Emily," Victoria explained, leaning forward in her steel chair. "It is an immune system for the world's wealth. For three generations, the Archons have ruled because we held the biometric cyphers. But biology degrades. Sarah died because she was soft. Arthur was a drunkard with a fragile ego. I needed an apex."
She pointed a long, bony finger directly at Clara.
"The girl carries the genetic code that unlocks the secondary sovereign accounts—three trillion dollars in gold and digital assets buried in the central banks of Zurich, Tokyo, and London. But the girl is five. She cannot hold an empire. She needs a wolf to guard her until she comes of age."
"You think I would ever work for you?" I spat, disgust burning in my throat.
"You don't have to work for me," Victoria said calmly. "I am eighty-nine years old, Emily. My heart has three months left. I don't need an employee. I need a replacement."
The rotunda fell dead silent, save for the hum of the cooling systems.
"You manufactured my father's abuse," I said, my voice shaking with pure, untamed hatred. "You watched him throw me into walls. You watched him starve me in the cellar. You gave the order to beat me on Thanksgiving night!"
"And look what it made you!" Victoria's voice suddenly cracked like a whip, echoing through the obsidian hall. "You survived! You didn't cry to the police! You didn't fold into self-pity like Eleanor! You picked up a rifle, you tracked my operators, you slaughtered Arthur, and you breached the most secure vault on the planet! You are the only person on this earth worthy of sitting in this chair!"
She reached to her right and pulled a heavy titanium cylinder from the console, setting it on the steel desk.
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"Take the seat, Emily," Victoria whispered, her eyes burning with fanatic pride. "Kill Eleanor to balance the ledger. Kill your bodyguard so there are no witnesses. Take Clara, enter your biometric key, and inherit the earth. Or die here in the ice with the rest of the failures."
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