Chapter 46 - Beatrice’s Reckoning
"Lenora, no!" Beatrice screamed, scrambling across the metal grate on her hands and knees, her face smeared with blood and mascara. She lunged for my ankle with claw-like fingers, but Hayes intercepted her, pinning her wrists to the deck with iron restraint.
"Get off me! That's my inheritance!" Beatrice shrieked, thrashing wildly under Hayes’s grip. "I am Douglas Sterling’s daughter! I was supposed to be the queen of this city! Not her! Not that little ungrateful wretch!"
"You were never a daughter to him, Beatrice," I said, looking down at her with a calm that felt like an unbreakable shield. "You were an extortionist who shared his blood. You never visited him when he was dying in that hospice bed. You didn't even come to his funeral until you heard there was a reading of the will. You traded his love for Julian Vance’s promises of counterfeit luxury."
"I gave you life!" she shrieked, her voice cracking into a jagged sob of pure entitlement. "You owe me everything!"
"I owe you nothing," I said coldly. "And today, the account is closed."
I turned my back on her cries and faced Arthur Sterling. The old man stood just two paces away, a heavy antique revolver half-drawn from his coat pocket, his gaze fixed on my right hand.
"Place your palm upon the scanner, Lenora," Arthur whispered, a predatory hunger burning behind his pale eyes. "Unlock the Sterling sovereign charter, and I will let you and your soldier walk away alive."
"You won't let anyone walk away, Arthur," I replied softly. "Because you don't even know what's inside."
With steady determination, I raised my right hand and pressed my bare palm against the glowing amber glass of the biometric pedestal.
A sharp, microscopic prick stung the center of my palm as the system sampled my blood. For three agonizing seconds, the cavern fell dead silent. Even the distant sirens seemed to fade into nothingness.
Then, the pedestal chimed—a low, resonant, bell-like chord that vibrated through the steel deck.
The amber light vanished, replaced by an intense, brilliant sapphire blue.
A mechanized voice, synthetic yet unmistakably modeled on the warm, baritone cadence of Douglas Sterling, echoed from the subterranean bulkheads:
*“BIOMETRIC CONFIRMATION: LENORA STERLING. LINEAGE VERIFIED. PROTOCOL: SOVEREIGN RECKONING INITIATED.”*
Arthur’s face twisted in horrific realization. "What?! Reckoning?! Where is the charter release?!"
May you like
The massive steel hatch did not swing open. Instead, heavy, pneumatic locks slammed shut across the primary seals with concussive, deafening cracks. Above our heads, the hydraulic catwalks began to retract, and the yellow warning sirens across the excavation pit shifted into a rapid, pulsing shriek.
***
