Chapter 7 - Showdown at Teterboro
The sleek Gulfstream jet sat on the tarmac of the private aviation terminal in Teterboro, its twin engines whining as they prepared for taxiing. Rain lashed horizontally across the floodlit runway, whipped up by the fierce autumn winds.
Sloane Avery walked briskly across the tarmac under a large black umbrella held by an airport ground crew member she had bribed. Her heels clicked sharply against the wet asphalt. She clutched a leather briefcase filled with bearer bonds, offshore access codes, and hard copies of the family's most sensitive legal liabilities.
As she reached the bottom of the aircraft's retractable stairs, the piercing wail of police sirens cut through the roar of the jet engines.
Sloane paused, looking back.
Two black SUVs smashed through the security gate of the private terminal, their high beams cutting blinding swaths through the rain. The vehicles skidded to a halt fifty yards from the Gulfstream, doors flying open.
Julian and Hannah stepped out into the downpour, neither of them bothering with umbrellas.
Sloane dropped her briefcase, realizing the futility of running further as airport security vehicles boxed in the runway from all sides. She turned to face them, her hair plastered to her face, her designer trench coat soaked through.
"You're entirely insane, Julian," Sloane shouted over the jet engine noise as Julian and Hannah approached. "You're ruining a multi-billion-dollar enterprise over a sentimental ghost and a child!"
Julian stopped two paces away from her, his expression colder than the winter wind. "You embezzled from my father, you forged medical records, you threatened the life of the woman I love, and you put my daughter in the crosshairs of a bomb threat."
"I protected the empire!" Sloane shrieked, losing her professional veneer entirely. "Without us, your father would have given everything away to charity years ago! We kept the Blackthorne name at the top of the Fortune 500!"
"At the cost of your humanity," Hannah said softly, stepping up beside Julian. She looked at Sloane not with hatred, but with a profound, pitying clarity. "You thought power was something you could steal and hoard in an offshore account. But you're entirely alone, Sloane. No one is coming to save you."
At that moment, federal marshals and local state troopers poured out of the security vehicles, surrounding Sloane and placing her in heavy steel handcuffs.
May you like
As she was led away toward a cruiser, Sloane cast one final, venomous look at Julian. "Conrad will appeal. The board will fracture. You haven't won anything."
Julian didn't dignify the threat with a response. He turned his attention entirely to Hannah, pulling her against his chest as the rain continued to pour down around them.
