Chapter 8 - The Paranoia Sets In
The Grand Ballroom descended into absolute chaos. Financial analysts were shouting into their cell phones, executing immediate sell orders on Vance-Sterling stock before the markets opened in Tokyo. Journalists swarmed the front of the stage, aggressively shoving audio recorders and cameras toward Julian, demanding an immediate response to my allegations of fraud and unauthorized corporate seizure.
Julian didn't answer them. He looked down at me from the stage, his face twisted into an ugly, unrecognizable mask of desperate rage and panic. He threw his silk handkerchief onto the floor, turned on his heel, and bolted off the stage into the backstage corridors, pushing two bewildered hotel waiters out of his way as he fled toward the private VIP exit.
Ten minutes later, inside the soundproof privacy of a luxury suite on the fifteenth floor of the Grand Regency Hotel, Julian paced the carpet like a caged, rabid animal. He had ripped off his silk tie and unbuttoned his collar, his chest heaving as he stared at the television screen on the wall, where local news channels were already broadcasting live footage of my dramatic entrance into the ballroom under the breaking headline: BIOTECH HEIR RETURNS: CEO ACCUSED OF MASSIVE TRUST FRAUD.
"How did she know?" Julian screamed, hurling a heavy crystal rocks glass across the suite, shattering it against the mahogany wet bar. "How did she know about the Zurich clearing accounts? Who leaked the internal accounting ledgers to her lawyers before the accident?"
He spun around, glaring at Diane Frost, who was sitting hunched over on the edge of the velvet sofa, frantically typing on her encrypted smartphone with trembling thumbs. "It was you, wasn't it?" Julian snarled, marching across the room and grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her violently. "You’re the only one who had the private security tokens for the offshore entities! You cut a secret immunity deal with Beatrice Sterling and sold me out to save your own skin!"
"Take your hands off me, you hysterical idiot!" Diane screamed, shoving him backward with all her strength. She stood up, her eyes flashing with pure, survivalist hatred. "If I had cut an immunity deal, do you think I would be sitting in this hotel suite with you right now waiting for the FBI to kick the door down? I am drowning in this nightmare because I listened to your stupid, arrogant promises about how easy it would be to get rid of your wife!"
She pointed a trembling finger at his face. "You were supposed to make sure the balcony fall was fatal, Julian! You told me the railing collapse would guarantee an immediate death! Instead, she survives, she gets a team of federal litigators, and now the Department of Justice is subpoenaing every single bank transfer we’ve made over the last three years! We are looking at twenty years in a federal penitentiary because you couldn't even execute a simple mechanical sabotage correctly!"
"Shut up! Just shut up!" Julian roared, running his hands through his perfectly styled hair until it stood up in wild, chaotic tufts. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the street below, where three unmarked black SUVs had just pulled into the hotel’s circular driveway, their red and blue dashboard lights flashing silently in the darkness.
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"They’re here," Julian whispered, his voice dropping into a hollow, terrified rasp. He turned back to Diane, his eyes wide with animal panic. "The feds are downstairs. Listen to me, Diane... we have to stick together. If they interrogate us separately, we invoke our Fifth Amendment rights and demand our attorneys. If neither of us admits to knowing about the balcony railing, they can only charge us with white-collar financial discrepancies! We can fight wire fraud in court for years! But if you open your mouth about the terrace..."
"I'm not going to prison for attempted murder to protect your ego, Julian," Diane said coldly, grabbing her designer coat and purse from the chair. "Every man for himself."
