Chapter 32 - The Breakfast at the Plaza
Lord Alistair Sterling chose the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel for our first meeting.
He sat alone at a corner banquette flanked by two mahogany wood pillars, dressed in a bespoke Savile Row suit that cost more than a family sedan. A gold pocket watch rested against his waistcoat, ticking with an irritating, mechanical precision. When Liam and I walked into the room, he did not stand. He merely gestured with his silver butter knife toward the empty leather chairs across from him.
"Mrs. Vance," Alistair said, his English accent smooth, cultivated, and cold as marble. "Mr. Vance. I trust your morning drive from Connecticut was uneventful. I must confess, I expected someone... older. Charles Morrison’s daughters were grotesque caricatures of wealth, but you look like an elementary school teacher who wandered into a boardroom."
Liam’s jaw flexed, but I placed a calm hand on his arm, keeping him anchored.
"Underestimating me has proven fatal to three generations of Morrisons, Lord Sterling," I said, taking my seat with deliberate grace. "I would advise you not to make it four."
Alistair chuckled, taking a sip of black tea from a porcelain cup. "The Morrisons were uncivilized American bumpkins with stolen credit cards. My family traces its lineage back to the Battle of Hastings. You are sitting on eight hundred million dollars of industrial real estate that belongs to my sovereign estate. I am not here to negotiate. I am here to present your liquidation terms."
He slid a leather-bound portfolio across the linen tablecloth.
"Sign over the deed to Newark Berth 24. Relinquish all offshore patents held under the Morrison Foundation umbrella. In return, I will allow you to keep your suburban house in Greenwich and a modest trust fund to educate your children. If you refuse, Lloyd's cancels your shipping registry at four o'clock today, and the Department of Justice unseals a federal lien against your private residence."
I opened the portfolio. The numbers were astronomical—an orchestrated financial decapitation designed to reduce our two years of philanthropic progress to zero.
"And if I show you that the bearer bonds were never stolen?" I asked, looking directly into his cold, aristocratic gray eyes.
Alistair’s smile remained fixed, but his knuckles tightened around his teacup. "The records are at the Bank of England, Mrs. Vance. My grandfather reported the burglary on October 14, 1952. It is an unassailable historical fact."
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"Your grandfather reported a burglary," I agreed, leaning forward until my face was reflected in the silver rim of his plate. "What he didn't report was the private receipt he signed four hours earlier in a basement flat in Soho, selling those exact bonds to Charles Morrison to cover his own gambling debts at the Clermont Club."
Alistair’s teacup paused in midair.
