“They don’t know who they’re dealing with,” Emma replied softly, her hands resting calmly in her lap.
She wasn’t the trembling girl who had dropped a tray of champagne glasses two weeks ago.
The trial by fire had stripped away her timidity, revealing the tempered steel beneath.
The lead SUV did not slow down as it approached the colossal, wrought-iron gates of the Sterling estate.
The iron gates were twelve feet tall, adorned with the gilded crest of the House of Sterling—an eagle gripping an olive branch.
Two private security guards stepped out of the gatehouse, raising their hands and shouting warnings through bullhorns.
“Ram it,” Vincent commanded calmly over the comm.
The heavy, steel-reinforced bull-bar of the lead SUV struck the central lock of the gates at forty-five miles per hour.
The impact was cataclysmic.
The iron hinges sheared off their stone pillars with an explosive shriek of tearing metal, sending the massive gates crashing inward onto the crushed gravel driveway.
The convoy surged through the wreckage without losing momentum, tires churning the gravel into hail as they swept up the winding, half-mile driveway lined with towering, ancient pines.
Muzzle flashes erupted from the estate’s outer terrace.
Private security guards opened fire, but the rounds flattened harmlessly against the Level B6 ballistic armor of the SUVs.
The vehicles slid to a coordinated stop in a semi-circle around the grand portico of the mansion, boxing in the front entrance entirely.
Before the smoke from the tires had cleared, the doors of the trailing SUVs flew open.
Eight heavily armed operators from Moretti’s private vanguard moved in swift, lethal formation, deploying flashbangs and suppressive fire.
Within forty-five seconds, the external security detail was neutralized, disarmed, and pinned face-down upon the frozen manicured lawn.
Vincent stepped out of the vehicle, adjusting the cuffs of his white shirt.
He wore no tactical armor.
He carried no visible weapon.
He walked up the sweeping limestone steps as though attending an evening gala held in his honor.
Emma walked half a step behind him, her chin held high, the cold wind whipping her hair across her face.
Vincent reached the massive, carved oak double doors of the mansion.
He didn’t bother knocking.
He stepped aside as his lead operator planted a hydraulic breaching ram against the deadbolts.
Chapter 60 – The Court of the Damned
The grand foyer of the Sterling mansion was a monument to stolen generations.
Enormous oil paintings of railroad barons and corrupt industrial titans lined the three-story atrium.
A sweeping marble staircase rose toward the private suites, illuminated by a crystal chandelier that dripped with diamond pendants.
At the far end of the foyer, standing before the double doors of the library, stood Richard Sterling—an old, withered man with silver hair and an arrogance that decades of unchallenged power had bred into his posture.
Beside him stood Victoria Sterling.
She was clad in an expensive emerald silk dressing gown, her face pale with terror, yet her lips curled into that familiar, venomous sneer.
And between them, slumped in an antique armchair with a half-empty glass of scotch in his trembling hand, was Senator Marcus Vance.
His suit was torn, his tie crooked, his eyes bloodshot and wild with the madness of a fallen tyrant.
Two remaining private bodyguards leveled their pistols at Vincent as he stepped through the ruined doorway.
“Stand down,” Vincent said, his voice flat, echoing through the cavernous foyer like the strike of an iron bell.
The bodyguards looked at Vincent’s eyes, then at the six laser sights that instantly painted their chests from the operators behind him.
Slowly, carefully, both men dropped their weapons onto the carpet and raised their hands, retreating toward the perimeter walls.
“You have committed an act of domestic terrorism, Moretti!”
Richard Sterling yelled, his voice cracking with senile outrage.
“This is private property!
I am the head of the judicial oversight committee!
I will have the National Guard obliterate your entire corporate network by sunrise!”
“Your committee has already been dissolved, Richard,” Vincent said coldly, stepping forward.
The rhythmic click of his shoes on the marble floor sounded like the ticking of an executioner’s clock.
“Your accounts in Zurich were frozen thirty minutes ago.
The Department of Justice has executed forty-two simultaneous warrants across the city.
You don’t have an empire anymore.
You have a prison cell.”
Victoria stepped forward, her voice shrill, dripping with venom as she pointed a manicured finger directly at Emma.
“You!
You filthy little South Side rat!
You brought this upon us!
You were nothing!
A piece of dirt I should have crushed under my heel the moment you spilled that wine!”
Emma did not shrink back.
She stepped forward, past Vincent’s shoulder, walking until she was standing barely six feet from the trembling heiress.
