Chapter 24 - The Reckoning of the Matriarch
The federal holding facility in Sea-Tac was a windowless concrete bunker built for high-value interstate fugitives. Because Helena’s diplomatic status had been stripped by the Swiss government following the undeniable video evidence of the St. Jude Academy attack, she was classified as an international flight risk and denied bail.
I sat across from her in the interrogation booth, separated by three inches of bulletproof composite glass.
Helena looked like a ghost. Her chignon had fallen apart; her expensive makeup was smeared with dried sweat, and the orange prison smock hung loosely over her frail frame.
She picked up the heavy black receiver with trembling fingers. I lifted mine.
"What do you want, Anderson?" she asked, her voice raspy, broken, stripped of all aristocratic arrogance. "You came to gloat before the federal marshals ship me to a federal detention center?"
"I don't gloat, Helena," I said, resting my forearms on the steel counter. "I settle accounts."
I slid a blue legal folder against the glass.
"This is a complete liquidation agreement for the Moretti European maritime holdings," I said. "Every vessel, every terminal in Rotterdam and Genoa, transferred into the Emma Sarah Anderson Foundation. Managed jointly by Doernbecher Children's Hospital and the Portland Port Authority."
Helena stared at the folder, her breath hitching. "That is my entire life's work. Four hundred million dollars."
"It was Sarah’s birthright," I countered ruthlessly. "And you used it to hunt her daughter like an animal in a school basement."
"And if I refuse to sign?" she hissed, a desperate flicker of her old venom surfacing.
"If you refuse, I release the financial records detailing your involvement in Julian Valenti's yacht explosion seven years ago," I said, holding her gaze with unyielding force. "Mateo planted the bomb, but you paid the mechanic who rigged the fuel lines. The Italian authorities have an open homicide warrant waiting for your signature on an extradition treaty. You will spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security prison in Sicily."
Helena’s jaw went slack. The last card in her deck had been torn to pieces.
"You knew," she breathed, horrified.
"I always know," I said softly. "Sign the paper, Helena. You get to serve your time in a federal facility in Connecticut with three meals a day and clean sheets. Refuse, and I put you on a transport flight to Palermo tonight."
With shaking hands, Helena picked up the state-issued pen. She signed each page, her signature jagged and uneven. When she finished, she pushed the folder back toward the slot, tears of bitter defeat slipping down her withered cheeks.
"She hated me," Helena whispered, staring down at her handcuffed wrists. "Sarah hated me until the day she died."
"Sarah didn't hate you," I said, picking up the folder. "She pitied you. Because you had all the gold in the world, Helena, and you died alone in an empty house."
I hung up the receiver, turned my back on the glass, and walked out into the corridor.
Marcus was waiting by the exit doors, holding my coat.
May you like
"Is it done, Daniel?"
"The Moretti name is dead," I said, stepping through the heavy security gates into the fresh, cold air of the Pacific Northwest. "From this day forward, there is only the Anderson family."
