Chapter 3 - The Shadow Empire
Forty-eight hours after Frank Miller’s arrest, the Carter estate was under federal guard.
Noah was resting comfortably in his crib, monitored by a team of elite pediatric specialists I had flown in from Johns Hopkins. His vitals were pristine, his appetite was back, and the lethal toxins had been completely flushed from his system.
I sat in my grand library, staring at the rain pouring down against the high stained-glass windows.
A heavy crystal glass of scotch sat untouched on my mahogany desk. Across from me sat Special Agent Emily Parker. She had traded her maid's apron for a tailored navy suit, looking every bit the formidable federal agent she was.
"Frank isn't talking," Emily said, opening a thick beige case file on the desk between us. "His attorneys are stonewalling the District Attorney. But we managed to decrypt the satellite phone we recovered from his coat."
"And?" I asked, my tone deadly quiet.
"Frank wasn't working alone," Emily explained, sliding three surveillance photographs toward me. "The Moretti family in Boston provided the funds, but the actual poison—the organophosphate variant—was acquired through an elite international broker known only as 'The Chemist'."
I picked up the first photograph. It showed a tall, elegant woman in her late forty's, wearing a designer grey trench coat, stepping out of a black sedan outside a private medical clinic in Geneva.
"Her name is Dr. Vivienne Vance," Emily continued. "She's an ex-pharmaceutical researcher who sells custom-designed, untraceable toxins to high-net-worth criminals, syndicates, and political figures. She created the compound used on Noah."
A dark, boiling rage stirred deep inside my chest. "Where is she?"
"She landed at JFK two hours ago," Emily said, leaning forward. "Which brings me to why I'm still sitting in your house, Mr. Carter."
"You want me to help you catch her."
"Vivienne Vance doesn't deal with lower-tier lieutenants like Frank," Emily stated flatly. "Frank was just a contact. Vance came to New York because she believes the job was completed and she's here to collect the remaining twenty million dollars from the primary buyer."
I frowned, my eyebrows knitting together. "Primary buyer? I thought Frank was the buyer."
"Frank didn't have twenty million dollars in liquid cash," Emily said, dropping another document onto the desk. "The wire transfer came from an encrypted Swiss entity called Valence Holdings. An entity registered to a member of your own board of directors."
My breath hitched in my throat. "Who?"
"Julian Vance," Emily revealed. "Vivienne Vance’s estranged brother... and your chief financial officer."
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I slammed my fist onto the heavy desk, rattling the crystal glass. "Julian? I brought him into my company ten years ago! I paid off his gambling debts! I gave him five percent of the parent corporation!"
"Julian was bleeding money in overseas investments," Emily said coldly. "He realized that if you died, or if you were rendered incompetent by the tragic loss of your sole heir, the corporate charter dictated that control of Carter Enterprises defaulted to the board. Specifically, to the CFO."
