Chapter 4 - The Federal Raid on Casco Bay
“Victoria?!” Eleanor shrieked, dropping her champagne flute as her face drained of all color. She rushed across the deck, sliding in her daughter's vomit. “What’s wrong with her?! Victoria, baby, look at me!”
Victoria couldn't answer. She was gasping for air, her fingernails clawing frantically at her own throat as cardiovascular shock slammed into her system with terrifying speed.
Richard froze, the wine bottle slipping from his suddenly paralyzed fingers. He stared back and forth between his convulsing sister on the deck and me, standing upright, healthy, and smiling coolly against the railing.
“What... what did you do?” Richard stammered, his face turning the color of curdled milk as a sickening wave of comprehension washed over him. He looked down at the wine glass in my hand. “That wine... that was supposed to be—”
“That was supposed to be mine?” I finished his sentence smoothly, setting the untouched crystal goblet down on a small table with a soft clink. I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out the exact forensic lab report he had dropped two nights ago, and tossed it carelessly onto his chest. “You really should be more careful with your corporate espionage supplies, Richard. Leaving a neurotoxin vial where anyone can pick it up is just sloppy asset management.”
Before Richard could lunge at me or scream in blind panic, a deep, resonant roar echoed across the open waters of Casco Bay.
WAAAAOOOOH! WAAAAOOOOH!
Deafening, bone-rattling marine sirens surrounded us from all directions. Three massive, heavily armored United States Coast Guard cutter vessels and two elite tactical police boats materialized out of the fog line like ghosts of vengeance, converging on The Corporate Crown with military precision.
Before the Hawthorne family could even process the nightmare unfolding around them, grappling hooks slammed into the yacht’s gunwales, and heavily armed federal agents and tactical police officers stormed the teak deck in a flash of black ballistic gear and automatic rifles.
“Federal law enforcement! Nobody move! Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads!” the lead tactical commander bellowed, his voice echoing across the bay.
Within seconds, Richard was violently forced to his knees, his expensive custom suit grinding against the vomit-stained deck as plastic zip-ties locked tightly around his wrists. Eleanor was screaming hysterically, clawing at the tactical officers as they restrained her while emergency medical technicians rushed past with a stretcher for the seizing Victoria.
And then, parting the sea of tactical officers like a modern Moses, a towering man in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit stepped onto the deck from the lead command vessel.
It was my older brother, Alexander.
He didn't look at Eleanor. He didn't even spare a glance at the screaming, vomiting Victoria as medics loaded her into a medical helicopter hovering overhead.
Alexander stepped directly over the panicked mother-in-law, walked straight up to me, and wrapped a warm, heavy, protective arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a safe, familiar embrace.
Then, he turned his icy, piercing gaze down at Richard, who was kneeling in the dirt at our feet, trembling like a whipped dog.
Alexander crouched down slightly, looking down his nose at my pathetic excuse of a husband with a look of absolute, frozen disdain.
“Richard Hawthorne,” Alexander said, his voice ringing with cold, lethal authority. “You tried to murder my little sister. A very expensive mistake.”
Richard looked up, his eyes wide with desperate terror as he recognized the billionaire surname and the terrifying corporate empire standing behind Alexander. “You... you’re... Alexander Vance? The Alexander Vance? Her... her brother?”
Alexander smiled, though his eyes remained dead and devoid of warmth.
“You spent ten years treating her like trash,” Alexander continued smoothly, pulling a crisp, legal document from his breast pocket and letting it flutter down onto the deck right in front of Richard's face. “In case you didn't check your corporate ticker symbols this morning while you were busy plotting murders, my conglomerate just executed a hostile takeover and bought out your family’s entire three-billion-dollar shipping enterprise for pennies on the dollar.”
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Alexander stood back up, adjusting his cuffs with effortless elegance, and delivered the final, fatal blow:
“As of exactly sixty seconds ago, you, your mother, and your poisoned sister are officially bankrupt, assetless, and homeless.”
