Chapter 10 - The Sting
At two o'clock in the morning, the master study on the ground floor of the Medina estate was turned into a war room.
Julian sat behind his desk, fully dressed in a dark suit, his face carved from stone as he reviewed the security access logs Marcus had just decrypted from the Apex Building's subterranean servers. Clara stood at his shoulder, her medical bag open on the credenza, her eyes tracking the EKG readout on her tablet. Remarkably, despite the discovery of an assassination plot against his life, Julian’s heart rate was a steady seventy-four beats per minute. He was in his element now—not a recovering patient, but a hunter.
"Here," Marcus said, pointing a calloused finger at a line of data on the fifty-second-floor security log dated Tuesday at 4:15 PM. "The courier drop-off from the pharmacy arrived at the executive reception desk at four. The pouch was logged into the secure holding safe by the afternoon guard. At four-eighteen, the safe was opened using an executive biometric override."
"Whose override?" Julian asked, his voice disturbingly calm.
Marcus hesitated, looking from the screen to Julian’s face with a grim, reluctant sympathy. "It was David’s thumbprint, boss. The hallway cameras show him carrying the medical pouch into his office for twelve minutes before handing it back to the courier for the drive to Medina."
Clara gasped quietly, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Even though Julian had named his brother as a suspect downstairs, seeing the empirical proof on the security logs was sickening. David Vance—the older brother who had stood in the hospital room, who ran the day-to-day operations of the empire—was actively trying to kill his own blood for control of Vance Global.
Julian didn't flinch. He didn't slam his fist on the desk or curse. He simply closed his eyes for three seconds, taking a slow, deep breath through his nose, before opening them again. When he looked back at the screen, every trace of brotherhood had been surgically removed from his expression.
"David knows the board is meeting on Friday to vote on my permanent reinstatement as active CEO without medical oversight," Julian said coldly. "If I die before Friday, the corporate bylaws dictate that the Chief Operating Officer automatically assumes the role of Chairman and acting CEO pending a shareholder vote. David has been in my shadow for fifteen years. He clearly decided he was tired of waiting for me to retire."
He turned to Marcus. "Where is David right now?"
"He’s at his penthouse in the city," Marcus replied. "We have surveillance teams on his building. He hasn't left since nine o'clock."
"We don't confront him at his apartment," Julian instructed, leaning forward over the desk as he laid out the tactical strategy with military precision. "If we go to the police now, David’s lawyers will claim the pharmacy made a packaging error or that a rogue employee tampered with the pouch after it left his office. We need to catch him attempting to verify the kill."
Julian looked up at Clara, his gray eyes softening just a fraction as he reached out and took her hand from where it rested on the edge of his desk.
"I need you to do something dangerous for me, Clara," he said softly. "And if you say no, I will understand, and I will have Marcus move you and your belongings to a secure hotel in Vancouver until this is over."
"I'm not going to Vancouver," Clara said instantly, her fingers tightening around his without a second of hesitation. Her fear of the Vance family's power had completely vanished, replaced by a fierce, protective loyalty toward the man whose life she had saved twice now. "Tell me what we need to do."
A faint, proud smile touched Julian’s lips. "Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, I want you to call David’s private executive line from the estate phone. I want you to sound panicked. Tell him that I took my morning medication and collapsed in the bathroom with severe abdominal cramping and internal bleeding."
Clara’s eyes widened as she grasped the brilliance of the trap. "You want him to think the Warfarin worked faster than anticipated because of a surgical rupture."
"Exactly," Julian said. "Tell him that I am unconscious, that my telemetry is failing, and that I explicitly ordered you not to call 911 because of the media scandal. Ask him to come to the estate immediately to help you transport me to the private clinic in his car."
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"If he thinks you're bleeding out in secret, he won't bring his lawyers or his security team," Marcus realized, a dark grin spreading across his face. "He’ll come alone to make sure you actually stop breathing before he calls the medics himself."
"He will come to watch me die," Julian corrected quietly, his voice carrying a heavy, ancient sorrow that made Clara’s heart ache for him. "And when he steps into that bedroom... we will be waiting for him."
