Chapter 8 - The Interrogation of Victoria Sterling
At 2:00 PM the following afternoon, the holding cells beneath the federal courthouse in Boston were freezing, smelling of damp concrete and disinfectant.
Victoria Sterling sat on an iron bench inside a reinforced security cell, her sixty-thousand-dollar Dior gown stained with black grease, her acrylic nails broken, her bare feet shivering on the cold floorboards.
The heavy sliding iron door hissed open.
Julian walked into the vault, accompanied by Assistant United States Attorney Marcus Vance and two federal marshals carrying thick evidence binders.
When Victoria saw Julian, she scrambled to the bars, her bloodshot eyes wide with hysterical panic.
“Julian! Please! Tell the marshals to release me! My father had a heart attack in the holding block this morning—he can't survive in a prison cell!”
Marcus Vance stepped forward, opening the primary federal indictment folder.
“Your father is currently under armed federal guard at Massachusetts General Hospital, Miss Sterling,” the prosecutor said, his voice flat as an iron slab. “The grand jury returned true bills across eighty-six counts thirty minutes ago. Aggravated maritime extortion, illegal land theft, and the systematic suppression of fatal industrial accidents.”
He showed her the decrypted internal memos recovered from the South Boston rail offices.
“For four months, you and your father actively concealed the safety violations that killed David Vance, while personally ordering the catering agency to assign Elena Vance to the most grueling physical shifts in the city to force her off the property.”
Victoria looked at Julian, weeping in broken, hopeless defeat.
“Julian... what are you going to do to me?”
Julian looked down at his former fiancée with cold, absolute detachment.
“I am not going to do anything to you, Victoria,” Julian whispered, his voice quiet enough that the water dripping in the drain sounded like a metronome. “The law will do it for me. You will spend twenty-five years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. You will eat prison bread. You will scrub prison floors. And every morning when you wake up, you will remember that the woman you struck down owns every drydock your father ever built.”
May you like
He turned on his heel and walked out of the holding block, leaving her frantic, weeping cries to echo against the damp concrete until the heavy iron door slammed shut forever.
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