Chapter 2 - The Sterling Ultimatum
"Sterling," I hissed, the name tasting like poison on my tongue. "If you have so much as touched a single hair on Emma’s head, I will dismantle your entire family empire brick by brick. I will leave you with nothing but a federal indictment."
"Oh, save the alpha-male corporate speech for the board meetings, Jason," Sterling laughed, the sound dripping with arrogant satisfaction. "Let's be real here. You don't dictate terms anymore. Five years ago, your lovely Emma accidentally walked out of your life with a flash drive containing the private offshore ledger of Miller Meridian Capital—the one your corrupt father used to launder money through Eastern Europe. She didn't even know what it was until she found it in an old jewelry box last week."
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. The ledger. My father had died two years ago, leaving me the clean, legitimate side of Miller Meridian, but his past crimes had remained buried. Emma must have taken the wrong drive when she packed her things from my penthouse five years ago.
"She didn't leak it, Sterling," I said, my mind racing as I calculated the logistics of a rescue operation.
"No, she didn't," Sterling countered, his voice dropping into a cold, transactional register. "She was too loyal to the man who abandoned her. She actually tried to bring it to you to protect you. But my intelligence team intercepted her communications. Right now, Emma is sitting in a private warehouse in the Red Hook shipping yards. She hasn't given up the decryption password yet, but she will. Unless, of course, you make a compromise."
"What do you want?"
"The Manhattan Transit Terminal acquisition," Sterling whispered. "The board vote is at 2:00 PM today. You will withdraw Miller Meridian’s bid. You will let Sterling Global acquire the infrastructure monopoly. The moment the press release goes live, Emma walks free. If you don't withdraw... the ledger goes to the SEC, your company falls to zero by tomorrow morning, and Emma... well, accidents happen in the shipping yards."
The line went dead.
I stood in the center of my massive office, looking out at the sprawling Manhattan skyline. The Transit Terminal was the crown jewel of my career, the project that would solidify Miller Meridian as a global powerhouse for the next three decades. Giving it up meant losing billions and surrendering to my greatest enemy.
But then I looked through the glass partition of my private lounge. Liam was sitting on the sofa, carefully handing a strawberry to his younger brother, making sure Lucas ate first. They were my flesh and blood. The living, breathing proof of a love I had stupidly traded for a corner office.
I pressed the intercom button on my desk. "Claire, call Marcus."
Marcus was my head of private security—a former black-ops commander who handled the sensitive, high-risk assets of the Miller estate.
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"Sir?" Marcus’s voice crackled through the secure line a second later.
"Gear up the extraction team, Marcus," I said, my voice completely devoid of hesitation. "We’re going to Red Hook. We have exactly four hours to bring Emma home before the board meeting starts."
