Chapter 9 - THE CONSPIRACY UNMASKED
Three elderly board members gasped, one of them rising from his chair so quickly his wine glass shattered across the parquet floor.
“Thomas?” board member Arthur Vance choked out, his hands trembling. “Thomas Belmont? But... you died in Zurich in 2010!”
“I never set foot in Zurich, Arthur,” my father said, his voice ringing across the cavernous room with cold, unyielding authority. “I was locked in an unlicensed sanatorium fifty miles north of Albany under a fake name, while the man standing at the head of your table robbed my dead wife’s estate.”
Julian took a ragged breath, his veneer of sophistication cracking like cheap veneer. “This is an imposter! An actor hired by Adrian to disrupt this legal proceeding! Security, throw him out!”
None of the guards moved. Trooper Evans stepped forward, placing a thick folder of documents directly in front of the board secretary.
“These are certified biometric records from the Department of Justice,” Sarah Lin announced, her voice cutting through the panic. “We have verified dental comparisons, DNA matches with Adrian Belmont, and sixteen years of illegal banking transactions routing funds from Vantage Holdings to the administrator of the Greenbriar Psychiatric Facility. Furthermore, we have sworn testimony from Jason Mercer, who turned himself in to the NYPD two hours ago, confessing to corporate espionage and unlawful restraint.”
Julian’s face went from pale to a sickening shade of gray. He glanced wildly toward the service exits, but two more state troopers had already blocked the doors.
“You ungrateful bastard,” Julian snarled, dropping all pretense as he locked eyes with me. “Your mother gave everything to this family, and you were too weak to run it! You were a boy playing with blueprints! I built this conglomerate! I kept the creditors away! You owe me everything!”
“I owe you nothing,” I said, walking up to the podium until I was standing inches from him. “You stole sixteen years of my father’s life. You made me hate a man who loved me more than his own life. You made him sleep on park benches and drink dirty water while you drank forty-year-old scotch.”
I reached down, took Julian’s pristine gold pen from his fingers, and snapped it cleanly in half, letting the pieces clatter onto his fraudulent contract.
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“Julian Vance,” Sarah Lin said, stepping up behind him and pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from her belt. “You are under arrest for grand larceny, kidnapping, corporate fraud, and conspiracy. You have the right to remain silent.”
As the cold steel clicked around Julian’s wrists, the board members sat in stunned silence. My father stood tall, watching in silence as his captor was marched past him in shame.
