Chapter 8 - The Aftermath
The trial of Clarissa Vane was a media circus, but I didn't attend a single day of it. My lawyers handled the submission of the security footage and the embezzlement files.
The testimony of the Texas nurse she had bribed was the final nail in the coffin. The jury deliberated for less than two hours. She was sentenced to forty-five years in a maximum-security federal penitentiary without the possibility of parole.
Arthur Vance filed for bankruptcy and vanished into obscurity, his reputation in ruins.
With the toxic elements purged from my life, Sterling Holdings experienced an unprecedented era of growth. My focus shifted from defensive corporate warfare to massive philanthropic expansion. I endowed a new wing at the local hospital in my mother's name and funded a massive legal aid charity designed to help elderly victims of financial abuse.
It was during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new hospital wing that I met Dr. Elena Rostova.
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She was the chief of pediatric surgery. She didn't care about my bespoke suits or my Forbes ranking. When we shook hands, she looked me dead in the eye and told me my tie was crooked. She was brilliant, fiercely independent, and she treated my mother with the utmost genuine respect.
For the first time in my life, I wasn't looking at a woman calculating her angles. I was just looking at a beautiful, intelligent equal.
