The Heiress They Chose To Lose Chapter 07
The morning after I left the Global Investment Summit, Sterling Holdings shares plunged so violently that trading was halted within ten minutes of the opening bell.
The combined Harrington-Whitmore withdrawal was precise.
And fatal.
They didn’t use a single illegal tactic.
Their financial scale and credit influence alone were enough to choke off the Sterlings’ cash flow.
The once-unapproachable Sterling family became toxic overnight.
In the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, Adrian poured me a cup of tea.
“Alexander is investigating you.”
He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, amusement flickering in his voice.
“He’s using every international connection the Sterling family still has to dig into what happened during your time with the Harringtons and Whitmores.”
I took a sip.
The temperature was perfect.
“Did he find anything?”
“Of course.”
Damian lounged across the couch with his long legs crossed.
“I deliberately let him.”
“Otherwise, with his amateur resources, he wouldn’t even be able to access your old foster-care records.”
“He’s probably drafting his will by now.”
Damian was right.
At that moment, the Sterling estate in Greenwich was drowning in dead silence.
Alexander sat on the floor of his study, gripping a thick investigation report.
It documented everything.
The Harrington family’s adopted daughter had tried to embezzle foundation funds and fabricate evidence to frame me.
Instead, I proved her embezzlement.
She received eight years.
The Whitmore family’s adopted daughter had tried to kill me in a staged car accident.
Surveillance I’d arranged in advance captured the entire plan.
Combined with evidence of the money she had transferred, it was enough to send her to federal prison.
Twice, I’d entered powerful families through foster care.
Twice, I’d walked away untouched.
Along the way, I had become a core successor in both families.
And both adopted daughters who tried to destroy me ended up behind bars.
Yet the Sterlings had looked at someone like me and seen an easy target.
A foster girl they could control.
They had even tried to discipline me with a ridiculous agreement stripping away my trust rights.
“We’re finished…”
Alexander’s glasses slipped from his hand.
They hit the floor and shattered.
The rationality he had always been so proud of finally collapsed.
“What kind of person did we just make an enemy of…?”
Muffled sobbing came from outside the study.
Claire’s “heart condition” had flared up again.
But this time, the Sterling family could no longer afford their expensive private physician.
Their accounts had been frozen.
Creditors crowded outside the gates of the Greenwich estate.
There was nowhere left to hide.
“Alexander! Do something!”
Victoria burst into the study, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
“Claire can’t breathe! She’s getting worse! Take her to the hospital!”
Alexander slowly looked up.
He stared at his mother as though she were a stranger.
“She’s sick?”
A strange laugh escaped him.
Then he hurled the investigation report directly at Victoria.
Pages exploded through the room like pale snow.
“Mom, read it!”
His voice scraped from his throat.
“She managed to fool adopted daughters from the Harrington and Whitmore families who had resources most people can’t even imagine.”
“And Elena still destroyed both of them without leaving them a way out.”
“Do you honestly think Elena couldn’t see through Claire’s pathetic little performance?”
Victoria froze.
She even stopped crying.
“What… what are you talking about?”
“I’m saying—”
Alexander shot to his feet, eyes bloodshot.
“Claire does not have a serious heart condition!”
“For twenty years, the outrageous medical expenses we paid for her were secretly being transferred into an offshore account!”
“And while we’ve been collapsing over the last few hours, she’s still been trying to move money through that account!”
Victoria looked as though she’d been struck by lightning.
Slowly, she turned toward Claire.
Claire was lying on the living-room couch, still performing weak, labored breaths.
At that moment, the front doors were pushed open.
Several doctors in white coats entered, surrounded by two rows of bodyguards dressed in black.
At the front was the head of the Harrington family’s private medical team.
“Mrs. Sterling.”
The doctor smiled politely.
“Miss Elena asked us to perform a comprehensive cardiac examination on Miss Claire, including invasive diagnostic testing.”
“We understand she’s extremely ill?”
He calmly produced the long catheter equipment used for the procedure.
“Don’t worry.”
“We have the best equipment available.”
“One procedure should tell us exactly how much pain Miss Claire is really in.”
Claire stared at the equipment.
Then she screamed.
She launched herself off the couch and sprinted toward the stairs.
There was no trace of weakness.
No breathlessness.
And certainly no heart attack.