Chapter 8 - Breaking the Porcelain Mask
Within three seconds, eight armed officers filed into the grand foyer, their heavy tactical boots leaving wet, muddy tracks across Sylvia’s pristine white marble floors.
"Stop them!" Sylvia shrieked, her voice reaching a glass-shattering pitch. "They’re ruining the Italian marble! Marcus, do something!"
Marcus attempted to physically block an officer from entering the hallway leading to the dining room. "You have no right to enter this house without a signed warrant from a county judge!"
Frank Miller shoved the legal document directly into Marcus’s face. "This isn't a county warrant, Bradley. This is a Federal Dynamic Execution Order issued two hours ago by Senior United States District Judge Robert Holbrook. We have warrants for your person, your vehicle, your electronic servers, and this entire physical premises for Aggravated Felony Battery, Attempted Murder, Kidnapping, Spoliation of Evidence, and Federal Wire Fraud."
The words Attempted Murder and Federal Wire Fraud echoed into the dining room like a pair of shotgun blasts.
Arthur Sterling and Veronica Vance stepped out into the foyer. Veronica’s face was utterly devoid of color; she recognized the blue jackets of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division standing right behind the tactical team.
"Arthur, this is a grotesque misunderstanding," Marcus pleaded, turning toward his CEO with sweating palms. "My deranged ex-wife is trying to extort me! She’s manufacturing lies because she couldn't handle our separation!"
"Is that so?" a calm, authoritative voice echoed from the open front entrance.
The officers parted down the center of the foyer.
Walking through the doorway, stepping deliberately over the threshold, was Eleanor Vance.
She didn't look like a quiet, invisible widow in an oversized cardigan anymore. She wore a tailored black wool coat over a charcoal business suit. Her silver hair was pulled back into a severe, elegant bun, and hanging around her neck, gleaming under the foyer’s chandelier, was the heavy gold shield of the United States Department of Justice.
In her right hand, she carried a thick black leather trial binder.
Sylvia stared at me, her eyes bulging with disbelief. "You? What is this circus, Eleanor? Did you hire these actors with your pathetic savings? Get out of my son’s home before I have you arrested for trespassing!"
I walked straight up to Sylvia, stopping less than two feet away. The cold, unwavering authority in my eyes made the older woman take an involuntary step backward.
"Sylvia," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "You have spent three years asking what kind of quiet little life I lived before I retired. You never once bothered to look at the nameplate on the Northern District Federal Courthouse."
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Marcus’s jaw dropped. His eyes darted from my gold badge to the federal agents standing at attention behind me. "You... you were a prosecutor?"
"I was the Chief of the Special Prosecutions Bureau for the United States Department of Justice for twenty-two years, Marcus," I replied, opening the black binder. "And as of 6:00 AM this morning, under the Emergency Judicial Appointment of the Federal District Court, I have been officially designated as Special Deputy Prosecutor in charge of your destruction."
