Chapter 9 - THE POISONED GIFT
Eleanor stared at Julian in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
"You think you're a hero?" she whispered, her voice shaking with rage. "You think you're a savior?! You stole five years of my life! You let me believe my baby died in a cold hospital room! I spent five years sleeping in my car, digging through hospital trash, eating out of soup kitchens just to find a trace of him while you watched me suffer!"
"I watched you fight," Julian corrected, his dark eyes narrowing into sharp slits. "I watched you track down Dr. Harrison’s offshore accounts in Switzerland. I watched you secure a cleaning contract at the Bellevue Grand just to get within fifty feet of my family. You didn't break, Eleanor. Most people break in six months. You fought for seven years."
He reached down, picked up a thick, leather-bound folder from his briefcase on the floor, and set it on the table between them.
"What is this?" Eleanor asked, eyeing the dark leather with deep suspicion.
"That is the absolute transfer of power," Julian said flatly. "The Vance-Sterling Trust. It holds forty-nine percent of the voting equity in Sterling Global Logistics, three international shipping ports, and the title to the Greenwich estate. It is irrevocable. It names Leo as the sole beneficiary... and you as the sole legal trustee until his twenty-first birthday."
Eleanor didn't touch the folder. "I don't want your blood money, Julian. I just want my son."
"Money isn't just paper, Eleanor," Julian said, his voice dropping into an intense, urgent rumble. "In our world, money is ammunition. Victoria’s father—Jonathan Vance—will not accept the destruction of his family’s empire quietly. By sunrise, his legal team will file an emergency motion to have Leo placed into state protective custody while they contest your mental stability."
Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat. "What?"
"Jonathan Vance owns three federal judges in this state," Julian warned, stepping closer to the table. "He will claim you are an unhinged, obsessed woman who stalked his daughter at a public gala. He will use your five years of poverty and low-income history to prove you are an unfit, mentally unstable mother."
May you like
Julian pushed the heavy leather folder across the table until it pressed against Eleanor’s hands.
"Take the trust, Eleanor," Julian whispered fiercely. "Sign the trustee documents. Put fifty top-tier attorneys on your payroll before 9:00 AM. Because if you walk out of this precinct with empty hands and high morals, Jonathan Vance will take your son again... and this time, you will never find him."
