Chapter 8 - The Shadow of Vance
While peace had returned to the Rossi mansion, the economic storm raging across Chicago’s corporate underworld was far from over.
The collapse of the Kensington family had sent shockwaves through the financial sector. Arthur Kensington was currently sitting in a federal holding cell, while Victoria was being held on five million dollars bail at the Cook County Department of Corrections, awaiting trial for felony child endangerment and conspiracy to commit extortion.
However, the man who had pulled Victoria’s strings—Julian Vance—was still free.
Julian Vance was a predatory financier who operated in the grey zone between legal private equity and organized crime. He had spent five years trying to dismantle Leo Rossi’s shipping and logistics monopoly, using Victoria as his Trojan horse to siphon off company assets.
It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon when Mateo walked into my new office on the ground floor, his face grim.
"Beatrice," Mateo said, closing the door behind him. "Mr. Rossi is in a high-level meeting with his legal team upstairs. I need to show you something that came through our external mail screening."
He set a small, padded envelope on my desk.
Inside was a single USB drive and a printed photograph.
The photograph showed me walking Lily into her private elementary school in Lincoln Park earlier that morning. Drawn across my face in red marker was a thick crosshair.
My breath hitched, but I didn't panic. The timid woman who used to apologize for taking up space was gone.
"What's on the drive, Mateo?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.
"A demand from Julian Vance," Mateo said coldly. "He knows Leo’s legal team is finalizing the evidence packages for the grand jury. Vance is threatening to leak fabricated stories to the press claiming that Lily was abused by the house staff—specifically targeting you—unless Leo drops the civil lawsuits against Vance Capital."
A sharp, hot anger bloomed in my chest. Vance wasn't just coming after Leo’s business; he was trying to smear my reputation and drag a seven-year-old child back into the mud to save his own skin.
"Does Leo know about this photo?" I asked.
"Not yet," Mateo replied. "I brought it to you first because Mr. Rossi’s immediate reaction will be to send twenty armed men to Vance’s corporate office. If he does that now, while the federal prosecutors are watching us, it could jeopardize the entire legal case against Victoria."
I looked down at the photo of me and Lily.
"Vance thinks I'm the weak link," I said softly, a cold realization settling into my mind. "He thinks because I’m a former housekeeper, I’ll get scared, panic, and persuade Leo to settle."
"That's exactly what he thinks," Mateo agreed.
I stood up from behind my desk, taking the USB drive and slipping it into my jacket pocket.
"Where is Vance’s main office?" I asked.
May you like
Mateo blinked, taken aback. "The Vance Tower on Michigan Avenue. Why?"
"Because," I said, looking Mateo dead in the eye with a quiet, fierce authority, "it's time Mr. Vance learns that the people who clean up the garbage in this city know exactly how to throw it away."
