“You spent four decades engineering a grand takeover…”
Judge Mercer pointed her cane straight at the seven-year-old boy standing at the lectern:
“…only to hand your entire life’s work to the grandson you tried to murder in a Bridgeport closet.”
Arthur Vance’s skeleton seemed to liquefy.
His knees collapsed beneath him, his frame dropping violently into the steel seat, his head striking the headrest with a dull, hollow thud:
*thump.*
His eyes rolled back in his head; his throat worked in spastic, dry, un-coordinated clicks:
*k-k-k.*
“The money…” Arthur whimpered, his velvet cello voice finally reduced to a shredded, wet rattle from the bottom of an open grave:
“My sixty billion… my life’s work… my offshore empire…”
“Is gone, Arthur,” Alex Vance whispered softly across the lectern.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable epitaph that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“My grandfather built with honest steel.”
“Nicholas died with honest honor.”
“And around here…”
I reached out with my hand, picking up the antique gold Montblanc pen from the evidence tray, and snapped the gold nib in half across the granite:
*CRACK.*
“…a surveyor… always balances the books down to the absolute last cent.”
CHAPTER 7: THE RECKONING IN S-412
Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance let out an un-human, animalistic shriek from the bottom of his lungs.
He did not look like the Chief Justice of the United States now.
He lunged across the defense table, his midnight-blue suit tearing at the shoulder seams, his shackled hands hooked into claws aimed directly at Matthew’s face:
“YOU PENNILESS BASTARD! I AM THE CHIEF JUSTICE! I AM THE MASTER OF THIS CAPITOL!”
*CLACK.*
Two SOG tactical operators did not draw their sidearms.
The two-hundred-and-twenty-pound tactical operators stepped forward in synchronized, terrifying mechanical precision:
Their gloved hands caught Arthur Vance by his lapels, spun his six-foot-three frame ninety degrees against the black granite floor, and drove his face down onto the stone with three hundred pounds of linear kinetic leverage:
*SLAM.*
His cheek struck the granite, the broken pieces of his gold pen snapping beneath his chest, his bespoke silk tie soaked in the spilled coffee:
*SNAP-SNAP.*
A pair of heavy-duty, double-locking, high-security stainless-steel military transport restraints ratcheted around Arthur Vance’s wrists with two sharp, definitive snaps that sounded like twin rifle shots across the silent bunker:
*SNAP.*
A second set of chains clamped around his ankles—the identical stainless-steel irons used for capital traitors at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
Beside him, two female federal marshals pinned Camila Sterling against the wall, heavy transport irons clamping around her manicured wrists despite her screaming and vomiting:
*SNAP-CLINK.*
Camila shrieked, her Chanel jacket tearing down the back seam, her diamond earrings snapping loose and scattering across the concrete floorboards:
*patter-patter-patter.*
“GRANDFATHER, YOU FOOL!” Camila screamed, spit and snot running down her chin:
“YOU TOLD ME NICHOLAS WAS DEAD! YOU TOLD ME ALEX WAS AN IDIOT! YOU PROMISED ME SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS!”
Arthur Vance did not answer.
His head hung limp against the granite, tears and hair wax dripping from his chin onto his torn collar, weeping with the wet, pathetic, sniveling sobs of an emperor whose forty-year kingdom had just been melted down into scrap iron before the cameras of the world:
“Alex…” Arthur wept into the stone, his blood pooling around his split lower lip:
“Alex, please! Think of the Vance family name! Think of the Court! We built this country together! You can’t let them take the Chief Justice to a military prison in chains!”
I walked from behind the lectern.
I stood beside where he lay pinned.
I did not strike his cheek.
I did not raise my voice.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the shattered five-carat emerald-cut engagement ring that Camila had dropped into the hallway in Greenwich:
I dropped the ring onto the back of Arthur Vance’s silver head:
*TINK.*
“The family name was never yours to steal, Arthur,” Alex Vance whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable epitaph that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“Arthur Vance Senior surveyed with honest stone.”
“Nicholas built with honest steel.”
“And around here…”
