Chapter 7 - The Desperate Heiress
When I stepped into the penthouse living room, Cordelia Vance was cowering near the fireplace.
She looked pitiful. Her sixty-thousand-dollar designer gown was ripped, soaked in dirty water, and stained with soot. Her elaborate hairstyle was ruined, and her makeup was smeared across her pale, terrified face.
The moment she saw me walk out of the corridor, she threw herself onto her knees, crawling toward me across the expensive Persian rug.
"Royce! Please!" she sobbed, grabbing the hem of my trousers. "You have to help me! The police are everywhere! They're saying my father was involved in illegal syndicate trafficking! They're seizing all our assets! I have nowhere else to go!"
I stood over her, my hands tucked into my pockets, my expression as cold and unyielding as a granite mountain.
"Get off your knees, Cordelia," I said coldly. "You look pathetic."
"Royce, please!" she cried, looking up at me with desperate, bloodshot eyes. "I didn't know my dad was working with Victor Thorne! I swear I didn't know! I was just doing what my father told me to do! He told me to start a fight in the lobby with that maid so Victor's men could enter through the side doors!"
"You shoved a five-month pregnant woman onto shattered glass," I said, my voice dropping into a register of deadly chill. "You called her a worthless peasant. You laughed while she bled."
"She is just a maid!" Cordelia screamed, her true, rotten nature leaking out through her panic. "Why do you care so much about her?! I'm a Vance! I'm high society! I was supposed to marry Harlon and rule New York with him! Why are you choosing that penniless trash over us?!"
I bent down, grabbing Cordelia by the collar of her ruined dress, pulling her up until her eyes were inches from mine.
"That 'penniless trash' saved my life six years ago while your family was busy stealing money from dock workers," I hissed into her face. "She has more grace, beauty, and honor in her small finger than your entire bloodline possesses."
Cordelia gasped, choking on her own tears.
"Where is Harlon?" I asked.
"He... he ran," she whimpered. "When the shooting started, he took my father's offshore access codes and fled to the docks. He's trying to get on one of Victor Thorne's cargo ships to leave the country!"
I tossed her back onto the floor like a sack of garbage.
"Marcus!" I called out.
Marcus stepped forward from the shadows. "Yes, Boss?"
"Take Miss Vance down to the basement holding cells," I ordered. "Hand her over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, along with the full financial dossier on the Vance family's money laundering."
"No! Royce, please! You can't put me in prison!" Cordelia shrieked as two heavy-set security guards grabbed her under her arms, dragging her screaming down the corridor. "I'm Cordelia Vance! I don't belong in jail! Royce!"
Her screams faded as the heavy reinforced doors closed behind her.
I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Rain was still pouring over the city, reflecting the neon lights of the harbor down below.
Harlon Vance was fleeing to Victor Thorne's cargo ship at the docks. That meant Victor's primary command center wasn't in some hidden skyscraper—it was stationed right on the water, on his flagship container vessel, The Shadow Empress.
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I reached into my pocket, pulled out my satellite phone, and dialed a ten-digit encrypted number.
"General Vance," I spoke into the phone, referring to my old black-ops commander who now headed the Eastern Maritime Defense Force. "This is Royce Callaway. Activate Protocol Serpent. I'm taking a tactical strike team to the harbor tonight."
