“…only to hand your entire dynastic empire to the woman you tried to poison with tea.”
Arthur Vance’s skeleton seemed to liquefy.
He collapsed backward into his leather executive chair, his head hitting the headrest with a dull, hollow thud:
thump.
His eyes rolled back in his head; his throat worked in spastic, dry, un-coordinated clicks:
k-k-k.
“The money…” Arthur whimpered, his velvet cello voice finally reduced to a shredded, dry rattle from the bottom of an open grave:
“My sixty billion… my life’s work… my offshore accounts…”
“Are gone, Arthur,” Clara Bennett whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable epitaph that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“My grandfather built with honest steel.”
“Colonel Carter guarded with honest blood.”
“And around here…”
I reached out with my hand, picking up his antique gold Montblanc pen from the table, and snapped the gold nib in half across the granite:
