Chapter 5 - The Strategy of Kings
The signing of the joint trust fund changed the rules of the game overnight. The next morning, New York’s financial district was rocked by a sudden, aggressive legal injunction filed by Nero Logistics, freezing the Wellington-Collins maritime merger before the transfer could clear the state registry.
Marcus Wellington was furious.
At 2:00 p.m., Julian’s security chief, Marco—a massive man with a jagged scar across his eyebrow—stepped into the study where Julian and I were analyzing the Wellington corporate records.
"Boss," Marco said, his face grim. "Marcus Wellington just called the central line. He knows she’s here. He’s threatening to file federal kidnapping charges against you if she isn't returned to the Wellington estate by midnight."
Julian let out a short, quiet breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in his silver-gray eyes. He stood up from his desk, walking over to the wide glass windows that looked out over the gray, stormy sea.
"Let him file whatever he wants," Julian said smoothly. "The local precinct belongs to my family, and the federal judge who handles maritime kidnapping files owes his seat to my father’s old board of capos. He won't get a warrant before the new year."
He turned back to look at me. I was sitting on the leather sofa, wearing a soft gray sweater and jeans that Elena had purchased for me, my hands curled around a laptop as I tracked the financial flows of the Wellington shell companies. For three days, I hadn't just been hiding; I had been working. I had spent hours analyzing the ledger entries my grandmother had kept in her old lockbox, comparing them to the digital transfers Julian’s hackers had pulled from the Wellingtons' offshore servers.
"Julian," I said, my voice cutting through the tension in the room. "Look at this."
He walked over, leaning over my shoulder until his chest was brushing against my back. The heat of his body was intoxicating, a constant, solid reassurance against the chaos outside.
"What did you find, piccola?"
"The Wellingtons aren't just trying to lease the terminal," I said, pointing to a series of encrypted transaction strings on the screen. "They’ve already accepted a fifty-million-dollar deposit from a European company called Vostok Energy. But the bank accounts aren't registered to Wellington Enterprises. They're registered to a private offshore trust in Panama called The Evelyn Foundation."
Julian’s eyes narrowed into chips of lethal ice. "Evelyn Wellington’s private charity account."
"Exactly," I said, turning my head to look at him. Our faces were only inches apart, his silver eyes tracking the movement of my lips. "Marcus didn't tell his father about this account. He’s skimming the deposit money from his own family’s monopoly. He’s planning to double-cross Charles once the terminal clears."
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A slow, brilliant smile touched Julian’s lips—the kind of smile a general wears when he sees the enemy’s flanks crumble. He reached out, his long fingers cupping my chin, his thumb gently smoothing the skin of my jaw.
"You are an incredibly dangerous woman, Isabella Collins," he murmured, his voice rich and low. "You just handed me the rope to hang the entire Wellington dynasty."
