Chapter 691
“Do not leave her side,” Dallas ordered. His tone left no room for negotiation. “I’m going to the control room to run a manual diagnostic on the external perimeter.”
Eliza watched his broad back disappear down the hallway.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She turned her head and looked at the glowing red numbers of the atomic clock mounted on the wall.
Ten-thirty. Less than ninety minutes until Gideon’s midnight deadline.
Miles away, on the dark shores of Lake Geneva, the storm was escalating.
Heavy rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Sterling Estate. A massive bolt of lightning split the night sky, illuminating the suffocating tension inside the grand study.
Professor Beatrice Vance stood by the window, her knuckles stark white around a heavy satellite phone. The screen was dead. No signal.
Cassian Sterling sat behind his massive mahogany desk, holding a crystal glass of amber whiskey. He regarded his wife with the cold, detached stare of a man evaluating a broken piece of machinery.
Beatrice drew a sharp breath and spun around, her silk dress swishing around her ankles.
“Why did you cut the external communications?” she demanded, her voice shaking with raw, unfiltered fury.
Cassian took a slow sip of his whiskey. “Because you are too emotional, Beatrice. I cannot have you warning that Koch girl and compromising our strategic position.”
Beatrice crossed the room in measured, furious strides. She slammed both hands flat on the polished wood of his desk.
“You are enabling a monster!” she said, her chest heaving. “Gideon is completely out of his mind. He is going to drag this entire family into a bloodbath.”
Cassian didn’t blink.
He let out a low, mocking chuckle. “Gideon is reclaiming the dignity of the Sterling name. Your sympathy for that Wall Street orphan and her child is pathetic. It is cheap, and it is incredibly stupid.”
The absolute absence of humanity in his eyes snapped the last thread of Beatrice’s patience.
“You don’t care about dignity,” Beatrice said, tearing down the polite facade of their marriage. “You don’t care if your son lives or dies tonight. You only care about how much European royal capital he can steal for your bank accounts.”
The words hit their mark.
Cassian’s face twisted into an ugly snarl. He hurled his crystal glass at the floor.
It shattered, sending sharp fragments spraying across the carpet. Beatrice stepped back instinctively, but a jagged piece still sliced across her ankle, drawing a thin, dark line of blood over her silk stocking.
Cassian stood up. His massive frame cast a dark, oppressive shadow over the desk. He walked around the furniture, his heavy footsteps deliberate against the floorboards, and stopped inches from her face.
His hand shot out. He clamped his fingers around Beatrice’s jaw and squeezed until she gasped.
“The Sterling family does not need a matriarch who bleeds for the enemy,” Cassian whispered. His breath smelled of alcohol and malice.
Beatrice endured the pressure. She didn’t look away. Her eyes burned with fierce, suicidal resolve.
She jerked her head back violently, breaking his grip, and took two steps away from him.