Chapter 9
The federal agents moved with mechanical efficiency.
Dacre was dragged across the parquet, his polished shoes scuffing the wood, his screams of denial and terror echoing down the long marble corridor until the service doors swung shut behind him.
Senator Montgomery Vane was led away in custody by two junior agents, his head bowed, his political career shattered beyond repair.
Sybil remained on the floor beside the cleaning trolley. Her lavender dress was torn at the hem; her diamond earrings were crooked; her mascara was running in black, grotesque tracks down her rosy cheeks. She looked up at Ronan, her lips trembling with pure venom.
"You're an old monster," Sybil whispered. "You think you've won? The Vane name will survive this! Our attorneys will drag this through the appellate courts for ten years! And your granddaughter will grow up knowing her father was a convicted murderer!"
Ronan walked over to her. He did not raise his hand; he merely looked down at her with a disgust so absolute it made her shrink back against the wheels of the mop cart.
"Your attorneys will be very busy defending your father from thirty federal counts of wire fraud, Miss Vane," Ronan said. "As for your family's trust fund... the Crestwell Holding Corporation bought eighty percent of your father's municipal debt three weeks ago. By tomorrow morning, the bailiffs will be locking the doors of your brownstone on Fifth Avenue."
Sybil gasped, her breath catching in her throat. "You... you bought our debt?"
"I own your house," Ronan murmured. "I own your cars. I own the diamonds in your ears. Silas will ensure your personal belongings are deposited on the sidewalk outside the bus station by midnight. Including the cleaning rags you knocked onto my floor."
Sybil looked down at the pile of dirty blue rags beside her knees. A sob of pure, broken despair tore from her throat.
Ronan turned his back on her.
He walked back to the center of the ballroom, where the three hundred guests remained frozen, waiting for their sentence.
Ronan looked out over the sea of pale, terrified faces—the corrupt city treasurers, the compromised judges, the shipping associates who had watched a little girl be humiliated with a mop and said nothing.
May you like
"The reception is over," Ronan announced. His voice was steady, quiet, and carried the finality of an iron door closing. "Every man in this room who signed a side agreement with Dacre has until sunrise to deliver his resignation to my desk. If you are not in my office by eight o'clock, Silas will visit your homes."
Within sixty seconds, the ballroom was completely empty. The guests fled through the main entrance like ghosts fleeing the dawn, leaving behind unfinished flutes of champagne, abandoned silk wraps, and the lingering scent of expensive perfume.
