Chapter 6 - The Arrival of Viktor
Before Margaret could finish her sentence, the heavy front doors of the estate swung open with a resounding crash.
Freezing wind swept into the grand foyer, scattering program pamphlets across the marble.
Viktor strode through the entrance, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, his heavy winter overcoat unbuttoned. Behind him, flanked by two armed security enforcers, walked Madison Cole.
She wasn't running anymore. Her hair was wind-swept, her midnight-blue silk gown stained with mud along the hem, but her head was held high with defiant arrogance. The moment she realized she was trapped at the northern toll plaza by Viktor’s blockade, she had surrendered with chilling composure.
Viktor pushed her gently forward into the center of the ballroom.
She landed gracefully near Margaret, right beside the dropped bank printout.
Madison looked down at the paper, then up at Adrian. A slow, bitter smile crept onto her lips.
"Well," Madison said, her voice smooth and devoid of any remaining pretense. "It looks like the secret’s out."
Adrian walked slowly toward her until he stood inches away. The scent of jasmine and smoke was suffocating now.
"You were her best friend, Madison," Adrian said, his voice deadly quiet. "She trusted you. She let you into this house. And you helped engineer the brake line failure on her Mercedes."
Madison didn't flinch. She tilted her head, locking her hazel eyes onto his.
"Claire was weak, Adrian," Madison purred, her voice dripping with venom. "She cared about rules, about ethics, about family honor. You and I—we cared about power. We could have ruled this city together. But she was standing in the way. So we helped gravity along a little bit."
Natalie let out a cry of pure rage and lunged forward, but Viktor intercepted her, wrapping a massive arm around her waist to hold her back.
"Let me kill her!" Natalie sobbed into Viktor’s chest. "Let me tear her apart!"
"Save your energy, Natalie," Adrian said without breaking eye contact with Madison.
He raised his right hand.
In his palm sat the micro-SD memory card he had recovered from Claire’s secret cedar compartment.
"The moment our security team accessed Claire’s backup cloud server," Adrian said, his voice ringing across the silent room, "every audio file, every financial record, and every encrypted email exchange between you, my mother, and the mechanic who serviced Claire’s car was automatically uploaded to the United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan."
Madison’s smile vanished instantly.
The color drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse. Her knees buckled slightly, and she caught herself against the edge of a marble pillar.
"No," she whispered, her voice cracking. "That’s... that’s not possible. I wiped her phone."
"You wiped the phone you found in the car," Adrian corrected coldly. "You didn't know she backed up her encrypted correspondence to an off-site corporate server every Tuesday night."
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Margaret let out a sharp, breathless cry, grabbing her chest and staggering backward into Caleb’s arms. "My heart... get me a doctor..."
"Save the performance, Mother," Adrian said, not even looking back. "The only place you're going tonight is a federal holding cell."
