Chapter 13 - Bloodline on the Auction Block
The sunrise over Manhattan was pale and sharp as glass. Inside the high-security underground vault of the auction house, Vivian Sterling stood beside an elderly man whose fingers gripped the silver handle of a polished gray cane.
"You failed to secure the boy, Vivian," the old man said, his voice like gravel grinding under a boot. "The boy is the biometric key. Without his thumbprint, the digital bearer bonds inside the harp's central column will self-destruct in forty-eight hours."
Vivian sneered, her painted lips trembling with suppressed rage. "Lena won't keep him hidden for long. She’s a pauper who got lucky because my brother felt guilty for her pathetic life. She’ll come crawling for money to feed her infant."
"She is not a pauper," the man replied coldly. "She is Daniel's lawful widow. And if she figures out that Daniel never died in that river—that his body was never positively identified—she will dismantle everything we have built in this city."
Vivian went white. "You said the crash was fatal!"
"I said the car was destroyed," the man corrected, raising his cane to tap the glass case housing the shattered, half-restored frame of the golden harp. "Daniel knew how to vanish. But he left his Achilles' heel behind: that cursed child."
Suddenly, the heavy steel security doors of the viewing chamber slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Standing in the threshold, dressed in a sharp black tailored suit, her posture imperial and unyielding, was Lena. Behind her stood three federal marshals and Rachel, whose smile was as sharp as a switchblade.
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"Step away from my husband's estate, Vivian," Lena commanded, her voice ringing off the concrete walls.
***
