Chapter 8: The Interrogation of Celeste Monroe
The stainless-steel interrogation room beneath the Swiss estate was cold, sterile, and entirely soundproofed.
A single overhead halogen lamp cast a harsh, glaring circle of light onto the center table where Celeste Monroe sat chained by her wrists to a bolted-down iron chair.
Gone was the designer St. John suit.
Gone was the arrogant, triumphant smirk she wore when she stormed our library hours earlier.
Her hair was disheveled, her makeup smeared across her cheeks, and her chest heaved with shallow, ragged breaths as she stared fixedly at the dark one-way mirror on the opposite wall.
The heavy steel door swung open with a slow, metallic screech.
My father walked in first, his grey overcoat folded neatly over his arm, followed closely by Dr. Vance carrying a heavily encrypted data tablet.
I entered last, closing the heavy door behind me with a deliberate, echoing thud that made Celeste flinch.
I pulled up a metal chair and sat down directly across from her, resting my elbows on the stainless-steel surface.
For a long minute, nobody spoke.
The silence in the room was absolute, heavy enough to crush glass.
Celeste finally lifted her head, her eyes bloodshot and blazing with a desperate, venomous hatred.
“You think you’re so smart, don't you, Victoria?” she hissed, her voice cracking slightly.
“You and your precious family sitting in your ivory tower, playing puppet master with everyone's lives.”
“You’re just a spoiled little rich girl who got beaten by her husband because you couldn't keep your mouth shut.”
I didn't flinch.
I didn't raise my voice.
I simply reached into my pocket, pulled out the small sapphire pendant, and placed it gently on the center of the table right in front of her.
Celeste’s eyes darted down to the pendant, a sudden flicker of apprehension crossing her features.
“Recognize it?” I asked quietly.
“Nathan gave it to me on our second wedding anniversary.”
“He told me it symbolized the unbreakable bond of our marriage.”
“Turns out, he was right in a way.”
“It was an unbreakable chain designed to track my every move and relay every conversation straight to your master's underground terminal in Zurich.”
Celeste forced a bitter, defiant laugh.
“And what are you going to do now? Kill me? Hand me over to the authorities?”
“You can't touch me.”
“My legal team in London and New York has automated dead-man switches set to release every single shred of incriminating financial data on your family's offshore accounts the moment I miss a daily check-in.”
My father stepped forward, resting his palms on the table and leaning in close to her face.
“Your legal team, Ms. Monroe, was dismantled at precisely 04:15 this morning,” my father said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
“Every attorney on your payroll was picked up simultaneously by federal agencies in three different countries under emergency national security warrants.”
“Your offshore accounts have been seized.”
“Your shell companies have been liquidated.”
“And your precious dead-man switch?”
My father smiled grimly, tapping the screen of Vance’s tablet.
“Routed straight into a secure loop that feeds endless loops of white noise into your handlers' empty servers.”
Celeste’s jaw went slack.
All the defiance drained out of her in a single, hollow exhale, leaving behind the shell of a desperate woman who had gambled everything on a rigged board.
“Where is Nathan?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the overhead light.
“Where is he right now?”
I leaned forward, resting my chin on my intertwined fingers, looking straight into her terrified eyes.
“Nathan is sitting in a federal holding facility in Virginia, waiting for a legal defense team that is never going to show up,” I said softly.
“He thinks he won.”
“He thinks by stealing a hollow shell company, he’s defeated us.”
“And by sunrise tomorrow...”
I paused, letting the weight of my words sink deep into her consciousness.
“...he’s going to discover that the man he thought was his ultimate benefactor—the mastermind who groomed him from an orphan into a corporate CEO—has already signed his extradition papers.”
Celeste stared at me, horror dawning across her face like a rising tide.
“You’re going to hand him over to the Syndicate?”
“No, Celeste,” I said, standing up slowly and smoothing down the front of my sweater.
“We aren't handing him over to anyone.”
“We’re going to let him walk into his own board meeting tomorrow morning at Ashford Global.”
“And watch the man who ordered two hundred strikes against his own wife realize that he was never the player.”
“He was just the pawn being sacrificed to clear the board.”
I turned toward the heavy steel door, motioning for my father and Vance to follow.
As the heavy door began to swing shut behind us, Celeste let out a sudden, frantic shriek that echoed off the stainless-steel walls.
“Wait! You don't understand! Nathan isn't the head of the snake! There’s someone else! Someone higher up!”
I stopped, my hand resting on the heavy brass handle, without turning back.
“I know,” I whispered into the empty air.
“And we’re going to meet him tomorrow.”
I pulled the door shut, locking her inside the dark, soundless room, and walked down the subterranean corridor toward the private elevator that would take us back up to the surface world.
May you like
The final phase had begun.
And as the elevator doors slid open to reveal the bright morning sun rising over Lake Geneva, I knew that by this time tomorrow, Nathan Ashford's entire world would be nothing more than ash and dust.
