Chapter 59 - The Boardroom at Midnight
Julian lay pinned to the stone floor, his immaculate silver hair disheveled, blood seeping from a cut on his forehead onto his tailored white shirt. Yet, even pinned beneath Marcus’s weapon, a dark, mocking laugh bubbled up from his chest.
"You think... you think sirens will save you, Clara?" Julian wheezed, coughing weakly. "You have no idea what has already been set in motion. The police won't help you with what happens at midnight."
I walked toward him, stepping over the shattered glass of a spilled decanter, my expression cold and unyielding. "What are you talking about, Julian?"
"The Cross syndicate didn't die with Sterling Cross," Julian rasped, his eyes burning with venomous delight. "Cross’s international network—the Shadow Board in Zurich, London, and Singapore—they have been waiting for this exact date. At midnight, a pre-programmed default clause executes automatically across all Miller Holding subsidiaries. Unless the master encrypted key from Arthur’s safe was uploaded to the Zurich server by twelve sharp, forty-nine percent of your corporate empire transfers unconditionally to the Cross Foundation."
Derek checked his watch, his face draining of color. "Mother... it’s eleven forty-two."
"Eighteen minutes, Clara," Julian whispered, a bloody grin stretching across his teeth. "Eighteen minutes until the Miller name is liquidated across every exchange in Europe and Asia. And the master key? It was inside the flash drive in my pocket. But when I fell onto the hearth... listen."
Julian reached into his pocket with trembling fingers under Marcus’s watchful eye and pulled out a crushed, mangled piece of circuitry, charred by the hot coals of the hearth.
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"The key is destroyed," Evelyn gasped, her voice shrill with terror as the reality of her own ruin struck her. "Julian! You fool! If the key is destroyed, my inheritance... everything Cross left me... it’s gone too!"
"We all burn together, Evelyn," Julian laughed hysterically. "If I cannot rule the Miller empire, neither will you. The syndicate will liquidate the assets, scatter them through offshore shells, and Arthur Miller’s bloodline will end in public, humiliating ruin!"
