Chapter 10 - The Fall of the House of Sterling
The public auction of the Sterling family assets took place six months later, on a brisk morning in mid-April.
The bankruptcy court had ordered the complete liquidation of their real estate, their private art collection, and the luxury vehicles that had once been Ethan’s pride and joy. The federal government had seized their offshore holdings, while the civil restitution judgment I had secured against Ethan, Julian, and Vivian totaled eighty-two million dollars.
I sat in the passenger seat of my car, parked near the gates of the Sterling ancestral home in Westchester—a sprawling neo-colonial mansion that was now tagged with court-ordered auction banners.
Moving vans lined the circular driveway, men in blue coveralls hauling out eighteenth-century furniture, gilded mirrors, and crates of fine wine.
Marcus stood outside the car, leaning against the doorframe, watching the proceedings through polarized sunglasses.
“Julian took a plea deal this morning,” Marcus said through the open window. “Eight years. He agreed to testify against Omnia’s board of directors in the ongoing antitrust trial.”
“And Vivian?” I asked.
“Her application for medical bail was denied again. The judge cited her flight risk and her direct involvement in the tampering charges. She’s serving her sentence at Danbury. From what the marshals tell me, she’s assigned to the laundry detail.”
I looked at the house Ethan had bragged would be our weekend getaway—the house he had planned to renovate with the profits from my father’s bioprinting patents. It was empty now, its dignity stripped away, exposed as nothing more than a hollow monument to unearned privilege funded by systemic theft.
A local delivery van pulled up to the gate, and an officer escorted Ethan Sterling out of a secure transport vehicle for a mandatory property verification before the final auction lockouts.
He was dressed in a dark blue state prison uniform, his wrists cuffed to a chain around his waist. He had lost thirty pounds. His skin was pale, his posture hunched, his eyes darting fearfully around the driveway as if he expected someone to attack him.
He looked toward my car. The windows were heavily tinted, but he knew I was inside. He stopped on the gravel driveway, his lips trembling, his eyes pleading through the dark glass.
He wanted me to roll down the window. He wanted one last opportunity to apologize, to manipulate, to play the charming boy who had brought white peonies to my father’s funeral.
I didn't roll down the window.
I didn't feel rage. I didn't feel hatred. I felt only the profound, clean relief of total indifference. He was no longer a threat; he was no longer a husband; he was simply a line item on an old balance sheet that had been balanced and closed forever.
I tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Take us back to the laboratory, please.”
May you like
As the car pulled away from the gates, kicking up small clouds of dust, Ethan Sterling remained standing in the driveway, bound in chains, watching the only woman he had ever truly feared disappear over the horizon.
***
