Chapter 5 - The Boardroom Foreclosure on Pacific Highway
At 9:00 A.M. that morning, the Grand Executive Boardroom of Sterling Pacific Maritime & Global Transport on the thirty-fourth floor of the Pacific Highway Tower in downtown San Diego was an armed fortress of impending corporate doom.
Sixty senior shipping captains, deepwater terminal directors, and international bond trustees were gathered around the fifty-foot Brazilian walnut conference table.
Standing at the central presentation podium was fifty-six-year-old Bradley Vance-Croftâthe corrupt corporate attorney who had conspired with Corrine and Sloan to draft the fraudulent property conveyances.
Bradley was sweating profusely through his four-thousand-dollar bespoke suit, his fingers drumming frantically against his tablet, desperately trying to gavel the emergency shareholder assembly to order while news broadcasts scrolled across the eighty-foot video wall:
BREAKING NEWS: MOTHER AND SISTER OF BILLIONAIRE THANE STERLING ARRESTED IN 2 A.M. ARMED HOME INVASION; $32M EMBEZZLEMENT SCHEME UNMASKED.
Federal receivership established over Sterling Family Trust; Thane Sterling convenes extraordinary restructuring assembly.
"Order in the boardroom!" Bradley shouted, his voice cracking with panicked exhaustion. "The reports regarding Mrs. Corrine Sterling are an isolated domestic dispute! The maritime expansion into Southeast Asia must proceed under our existing management proxiesâ"
BOOM!
The towering double frosted-glass doors of the executive suite were thrown open with concussive, hydraulic force.
The sixty corporate directors leaped to their feet in synchronized, paralyzed shock.
Marching down the central red-carpeted aisle were four armed federal compliance marshals from the Securities and Exchange Commission, led by Special Agent Marcus Cole.
Walking between them, dressed in an immaculate bespoke three-piece midnight-blue Italian wool silk pantsuit, his posture straight, commanding, and radiating absolute sovereign power, was myself, Thane Sterling.
Walking proudly at my right side, dressed in an elegant ivory cashmere maternity dress, her posture upright, regal, and radiant with unshakeable dignity, was Alora Sterling.
And walking behind us, carrying an antique leather portfolio stamped with the gold seal of the United States Supreme Court, was eighty-year-old Arthur Vance Senior, his silver-headed walking cane striking the hardwood floor with concussive, rhythmic majesty:
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
Bradley Vance-Croftâs silver gavel slipped from his paralyzed fingers, bouncing across the glass blotter, rolling to a stop against my portfolio.
"T-Thane...?! ALORA?! ARTHUR VANCE?!" Bradley stammered, backing frantically against his high-backed leather chair, his face turning the color of wet drywall. "What... what is the meaning of this armed invasion?! You were supposed to be in Tokyo!"
I walked straight to the head of the table, stopping three inches from Bradleyâs chair.
May you like
I rested my hands flat against the polished mahogany, looking down at him with dark hazel eyes colder than an Arctic blizzard.
"The Tokyo flight was canceled, Bradley," my voice rang across the boardroom through the central sound system, clear, smooth, and razor-sharp as surgical diamond. "Because eighty-five percent of the commercial debt notes backing this entire conglomerate belong to my family's sovereign trust. This entire corporation is officially under sovereign foreclosure."
