Chapter 9 - The Ultrasound Lie: Chloe’s Golden Ticket Begins to Unravel
“She’s thirty seconds out,” Mason warned through the comms. “Do you want me to breach?”
“Negative,” I whispered into my sub-vocal mic while Julian turned to refill his glass at the wet bar. “Hold your position. Let the drama unfold.”
The heavy mahogany doors of the penthouse burst open with a loud slam.
Chloe stormed into the suite, her face flushed with hysterical rage, her designer handbag clutched tightly in her grip. Her eyes locked onto me sitting at the candlelit table, and then snapped to Julian holding the champagne bottle.
“What the hell is this, Julian?!” Chloe shrieked, marching into the center of the living room. “I've been trying to call your phone for two hours! You told me you were meeting with corporate auditors, and I find you here having a romantic candlelit dinner with this European tramp?!”
Julian’s charm vanished, replaced by furious annoyance. “Chloe, shut your mouth! This is Ms. Vance. We are finalizing the fifty-million-dollar liquidity contract that saves our entire operation!”
“I don't care about the contract!” Chloe screamed, taking a threatening step toward me. “Look at her, Julian! Look at her face! You're drooling over a woman who looks exactly like Valerie! Are you that pathetic? You spend three years trying to kill your wife, and the second she drowns, you try to replace her with a carbon copy?!”
I didn't flinch. I sat back in my chair, took a slow, delicate sip of champagne, and looked at Chloe with cold, mocking amusement.
“My dear child,” I said smoothly, my voice dripping with disdain. “If you believe this dinner is romantic, your standards must be as low as your credit rating. Julian is merely a business instrument. A rather clumsy one, considering he can't even keep his pregnant domestic partner on a leash.”
Chloe’s face contorted into pure hatred. She reached into her open purse, her fingers wrapping around the grip of the compact Glock concealed beneath her silk scarf.
“Mason, target lock on Chloe’s right hand,” I spoke silently through the comms.
“Laser calibrated on her wrist through the window,” Mason responded instantly. “One millimeter twitch from her finger, and she loses the hand.”
Julian saw Chloe’s hand dip into her purse and instantly panicked. He lunged forward, grabbed Chloe’s wrist, and twisted her arm away with brutal force.
“Are you insane?!” Julian hissed into her face, wrenching the purse from her grasp. “Do you want to ruin everything twenty-four hours before the wire clears? Get out of here!”
“Don't touch me!” Chloe cried, clutching her stomach theatrically. “I am carrying your child, Julian! The heir to the Sterling estate! You wouldn't even have standing in the probate court without my pregnancy!”
I let out a soft, dry chuckle that cut through their shouting match like a razor.
Both of them froze, turning their heads toward me.
“Heir to the Sterling estate?” I smiled, pulling a slim white medical dossier from my designer briefcase and tossing it onto the glass table.
Julian frowned. “What is that?”
“Before Vanguard injects fifty million dollars into a company tied to a family trust, my forensic investigators vet every single claimant to the estate,” I said calmly, crossing my legs. “That is a certified medical report from the Virginia Beach Fertility Clinic, dated three weeks ago.”
Chloe’s face turned from red to chalk white. Her eyes widened with absolute terror.
“Chloe, what is she talking about?” Julian asked, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl as he picked up the folder.
“Don't read that, Julian! It’s fake! She’s trying to divide us!” Chloe screamed, lunging to grab the paper.
Julian shoved her roughly onto the sofa and opened the folder.
His eyes scanned the laboratory results, the hormone assays, and the high-resolution pelvic ultrasound scan.
“Patient: Chloe Sterling,” Julian read aloud, his voice shaking with explosive rage. “Diagnosis: Uterine fibroid mass mimicking early gestational swelling. Zero presence of embryonic tissue. Patient was informed of non-pregnancy status on October 12th.”
Julian slowly lowered the paper. He turned toward Chloe, his blue eyes burning with murderous fury.
“You're not pregnant?” Julian whispered.
“Julian, listen to me!” Chloe sobbed, crawling toward him on her knees. “I wanted to be! We were trying! When the doctor told me it was just a fibroid, I knew you would leave me! I knew you only stayed with me because you needed an heir to secure the probate judge! I did it for us, Julian! For us!”
Julian kicked her away with a vicious snarl. “You stupid, lying parasite! You made me accelerate the river crash! You told me you were twelve weeks along, and that if we didn't eliminate Valerie before the third trimester, the trust would freeze the assets!”
I watched the two monsters tear each other apart in the middle of the luxury suite. The grand romance built on my supposed murder was collapsing into pathetic, ugly betrayal.
I stood up, smoothed the lapels of my crimson suit, and picked up the master port clearance folder.
“It seems your domestic affairs are in total disarray, Mr. Vance,” I said coldly, walking toward the private elevator. “I will be at Dock Four tomorrow night at 11:45 PM with my tactical transport team. If your security grid is not cleared, and if the cargo is delayed by one second, the fifty-million-dollar wire will be canceled, and Vanguard will short your stock into absolute oblivion.”
May you like
Julian ignored Chloe’s sobbing, turning to me with a desperate, frantic look. “The docks will be ready, Ms. Vance! I swear it! Everything will go according to plan!”
“I certainly hope so, Julian,” I said as the elevator doors began to close. “Because tomorrow night... all debts will be paid in full.”
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