Chapter 6 - Retaliation
Cast out onto the pavement beneath the torrential rain, Caleb Sterling stood with his soaked coat clinging to his frame, his ruined laptop bag clutched in his trembling fist. Vanessa had already fled in a yellow cab, screaming hysterically after the marshals confiscated her designer luggage in the hotel lobby.
Caleb’s world had disintegrated in less than twenty-four hours. But inside his bruised chest, humiliation was rapidly curdling into a poisonous, all-consuming hatred.
He flagged down a battered taxi using the last few hundred dollars of emergency cash hidden in his wallet.
"Take me to the Kane Tower," Caleb rasped, his eyes bloodshot.
Thirty minutes later, Caleb was ushered into a dimly lit penthouse office overlooking the opposite side of the financial district. Sitting behind an obsidian desk was Julian Kane—Arthur Vance’s fiercest corporate rival, a man who had spent two decades trying and failing to break the Vance monopoly on international shipping and logistics.
"You look pathetic, Sterling," Kane said, slicing a cigar with calculated precision. "I heard you were thrown out of Vance Tower like a stray dog."
"I have something you want, Julian," Caleb said, leaning over the desk, his breath ragged. He pulled a concealed black flash drive from his inner lapel. "Before Harlan locked the servers, I mirrored the encrypted architecture for Vance’s upcoming automated shipping network. Project Poseidon."
Kane paused, his lighter hovering over the cigar. His cold eyes lifted to Caleb. "Project Poseidon was Arthur Vance’s masterpiece. If it launches, it renders my entire fleet obsolete."
"It’s yours," Caleb whispered, his voice trembling with venom. "All of it. The source code, the government clearances, the contractor lists. Everything. In exchange for two things."
"Name them," Kane said, leaning back.
"Ten million dollars in an untraceable account," Caleb demanded, "and your media network. I want a smear campaign launched against Eleanor that will tear her apart. I want every news station questioning her sanity, her fitness as a mother, and her ability to lead. By the time her child is born, I want the world to view her as an unstable widow driving her father's legacy into the dirt."
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Julian Kane stared at the flash drive on his desk. A slow, cruel smile crept across his weathered face.
"Arthur Vance took a great deal from me over the years," Kane said smoothly, picking up the drive. "It will be an absolute pleasure to watch his pregnant daughter pay the bill. Deal."
