Chapter 3: The Sterling Siblings
Victor arrived at my house just after midnight.
He didn’t knock. He simply walked through the front door like he owned the place, which, in many ways, he did. My third brother had always moved through the world like rules were suggestions other people followed.
He was dressed in a black coat, his dark hair slightly tousled from the wind. His eyes — the same Sterling gray as mine — were cold and calculating as he looked around the house Dominic and I had shared for seven years.
“Where’s Sophia?” he asked.
“Asleep,” I answered. “I gave her something to help her rest. She cried for almost two hours.”
Victor nodded once. He didn’t offer comfort. That wasn’t his way. Instead, he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch like he was about to conduct a business meeting.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
I did.
I told him about Chloe’s words in the lobby. About the secret fiancée and the little boy. About how long Dominic must have been lying to me. About the way Sophia had cried in the car like her heart was breaking.
When I finished, Victor was quiet for a long moment.
Then he spoke.
“Dominic Harrington has been siphoning money from Sterling Holdings for the past eighteen months,” he said calmly. “Small amounts at first. Then larger ones. He’s been using shell companies connected to his brother-in-law to hide the transfers.”
I stared at him.
“You already knew?”
Victor looked at me without apology.
“I started investigating him six months ago. Something felt off. I just didn’t have enough proof yet.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“Now I do.”
Before I could respond, the front door opened again.
David walked in, still wearing his suit from a late Senate meeting. My oldest brother looked exhausted, but his eyes were sharp.
“Vivienne,” he said, pulling me into a brief, tight hug. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded against his chest.
David released me and turned to Victor.
“What’s the plan?”
Victor’s voice was ice.
“We don’t just expose him. We destroy him. Completely. His career, his reputation, his finances, and his relationship with that other woman. By the time we’re finished, Dominic Harrington will have nothing left. Not even his name.”
David didn’t argue. He simply nodded.
I looked at my two brothers — one who shaped laws in Washington, and one who operated in the shadows where laws didn’t reach.
For the first time since I saw Chloe in that lobby, I felt something other than pain.
I felt certainty.
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Dominic had made a mistake when he betrayed me.
But his biggest mistake was forgetting who my family was.
