“And her direct lineal heirs in perpetuity!”
“The bride you plotted to humiliate… the woman whose gown you tried to ruin while laughing through a hotel wall… is the sole registered fee-simple owner of Conduit Ten, the master sovereign creditor of your entire eighteen-billion-dollar conspiracy, and the Director of Sovereign Continuity for the United States Armed Forces!”
“And under Section Nine of the Rivers and Harbors Act of Eighteen-Ninety-Nine: no commercial lease, no private equity conveyance, and no Swiss defense transfer can be executed without the wet-ink consent of the registered fee-simple owner.”
Arthur Sterling-Vance collapsed onto both knees on the stone floor, his vicuña greatcoat soaking in the spilled wine and broken glass, his hands clawing at his chest as he wept ragged, hysterical tears of pure, un-calibrated ruin:
“David… please! Look at me! I was the Chief Justice of the Seventh Circuit! You cannot put a former federal jurist in Leavenworth chains inside a private chapel!”
