Chapter 37 - The Global Freeze
The takedown of the Helvetia Consortium reverberated across international financial markets like an economic earthquake.
Within forty-eight hours of the Geneva freeze, the Department of Justice, in coordination with Europol and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), unsealed eighty-four indictments.
Arthur Montgomery, sitting in his federal holding cell in downtown Seattle, watched on a tiny wall-mounted television as his entire real estate empire was systematically liquidated. Every property, every shell company, every offshore trust bearing his name was impounded by the federal receiver to satisfy the multibillion-dollar civil judgment filed on behalf of Lauren Vance.
His high-priced defense lawyers vanished into thin air the moment his retainer accounts were seized under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
In Seattle, Eleanor’s penthouse was stripped down to the studs by federal marshals executing civil liens. Julian was evicted from his luxury apartment, his sports car repossessed on live television by a local news crew that had camped outside his building. The golden son was reduced to dragging two cheap duffel bags of clothes down the sidewalk, hounded by reporters shouting questions about his complicity in his father’s staged assassination.
Meanwhile, back in Zurich, my father’s health showed remarkable signs of resurgence. The crushing burden of hiding, the suffocating isolation of living as a ghost, had been lifted from his chest.
Surrounded by top medical specialists funded by his liberated estate, Richard walked along the shores of Lake Zurich without his cane for the first time in five years.
"You don't have to go back to Seattle, you know," Richard told me as we paused on a stone terrace overlooking the water, watching white swans glide across the clear surface. "We can manage Vance Global from Geneva. You can leave that cold, rainy city behind forever."
May you like
I looked down at the platinum key hanging around my neck.
"No, Dad," I said with a serene smile. "Maplewood Court is where I fought for my dignity. That house isn't just wood and brick anymore. It’s the fortress where I proved that Eleanor could never break me. I'm going home."
