Chapter 6 - The Cornered Predators
Rain continued to lash against the glass windows of a high-end Bellevue apartment as Richard Vance paced back and forth across the hardwood floor, knocking back his third glass of scotch.
On the velvet sofa sat Victoria, her pristine white suit replaced by silk loungewear, though her face remained pale and blotchy from hours of crying.
"You ruined me, Victoria!" Richard spat, slamming his tumbler onto the bar cart. "Twenty-four hours! That’s all I needed to secure the final investment syndicate! Now Thomas Wright has locked the escrow accounts, the board has suspended my signing authority, and the press is having a field day with that video from the lobby!"
"How was I supposed to know?" Victoria shrieked back, her pride still stinging. "She was dressed like a healthcare worker, sitting in a cheap wheelchair! Who hides a trillion-dollar identity behind a nurse's smock?!"
"She doesn't hide it—she lives it!" Richard yelled, rubbing his temples. "When her parents died in that plane crash five years ago, she retreated into her non-profit work. She gave me operational control of Vance Real Estate because she trusted me to preserve her family’s legacy while she ran her free clinics!"
Richard sat down heavily, his shoulders slumping as fear took hold.
"If Thomas completes an emergency audit of the Grand Oak Estate budget before the end of the week... I’m going to prison, Victoria."
Victoria’s eyes narrowed instantly, her grief vanishing behind a wall of cold calculation. "What do you mean, prison? What did you do?"
Richard swallowed hard, leaning in close. "I overleveraged forty million dollars of estate funds into high-risk offshore crypto ventures last year. I lost almost all of it. I was using the Grand Oak restoration budget to cover the deficit, hoping to flip the estate at a markup and quietly put the money back before Elena noticed."
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Victoria stared at him in horror, but then a sinister smile slowly formed on her lips.
"Then we don't let her complete the audit," Victoria whispered. "If Elena is declared mentally unfit to manage her trust... control reverts to her closest living relative. And that's you, Richard."
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