Chapter 9 - The Viper’s Gaze
By Wednesday morning, the corporate hierarchy of the Sterling Spire was in chaos.
Rumors spread like wildfire. The ruthless, untouchable Julian Sterling had abruptly promoted a janitorial worker to an executive consultant position, giving her an office adjacent to his own.
Victor Vance sat in his corner office on the forty-eighth floor, staring at a security printout on his desk. Victor was a strikingly handsome man in his early forties, with impeccably groomed silver hair and a smile that never quite reached his cold, reptilian eyes.
“Her name is Elena Rossi,” his head of security reported, standing stiffly in front of the desk. “She’s been on the janitorial staff for two years. Yesterday, Sterling bypassed HR, bumped her salary to half a million, and moved her into his personal penthouse.”
Victor tapped a gold Montblanc pen against his desk. The name Rossi scratched at the back of his mind. It was a common enough name in New York, but combined with Julian’s sudden, erratic behavior, it raised every alarm bell in his head.
“Pull her background file,” Victor ordered smoothly. “I want to know where she lives, who she associates with, and if she has any family.”
“I already did, sir. She’s a widow. Has a four-year-old daughter. Husband died in a car crash three years ago in Queens.”
The gold pen stopped tapping. Victor’s blood turned to ice.
He remembered the car crash in Queens. He had paid fifty thousand dollars to a mechanic to sever the brake lines on an old Honda Civic. He had watched the news reports to confirm David Sterling—living under the alias David Rossi—was dead. He had assumed the wife and child would simply rot in the slums.
Julian knows, Victor realized, panic seizing his chest. If Julian brought the wife into the penthouse, he knows who she is.
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Victor stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. His handsome face twisted into a mask of pure malice. Julian hadn't fired him yet, which meant Julian didn't have hard proof. He was trying to build a case.
“Cancel my afternoon meetings,” Victor told his security chief. “And call the fixers. We need to tie up a loose end that should have been buried three years ago.”
