"How long have you known about Sterling?" Daniel asked softly, looking up at his father.
Samuel took a sip of black coffee from a ceramic mug, his hands steady despite the trauma of the evening. "I didn't know for sure until tonight. Julian Sterling has been trying to acquire our New Jersey terminal for five years. It’s the only deep-water access port on the river that isn't bound by municipal union caps. If Sterling gets that terminal, they secure an absolute monopoly on transatlantic freight shipping from Boston to Baltimore."
"And Maya?" Daniel’s voice cracked slightly on the name. "How did they get her to me?"
"Two years ago, when you were overseeing the warehouse expansion in Providence," Samuel explained quietly. "You were grieving your mother. You were working eighteen hours a day, isolated, angry at the world. You were vulnerable, Daniel."
Samuel set his coffee mug down with a soft clack.
"Maya isn't an interior designer from Boston," Samuel continued. "Her real name is Maya Sterling-Vane. She is Julian Sterling’s illegitimate daughter from his first marriage in London. She was raised in private boarding schools in Switzerland, scrubbed from public registries, and trained in corporate intelligence before being placed in your path at that charity gala in Newport."
Daniel felt a cold, hollow sensation open up in his chest. "A honeypot."
"A honeypot designed to grant them total legal access to our internal trusts," Samuel said. "If you had married her next month without a prenuptial agreement—which she was slowly convincing you to drop—she would have held a thirty percent voting proxy in Vance Logistics. Combined with the dissident board members Sterling bought off, they would have stripped me of the CEO seat by spring."
Daniel stood up, his tall frame blocking the light from the laptop screen. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the misty harbor waters.
"Where is she now?" Daniel asked.
"In custody at the 4th Precinct," Samuel said. "The police took the server hard drive and the video recording. They’ve charged her with felony assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, and corporate trespass."
"It's not enough," Daniel said, turning around, his eyes burning with an intense, icy resolve that made his father pause. "Felony assault gets her a hot-shot defense lawyer from Manhattan and bail by noon tomorrow. Julian Sterling will cover her legal fees, bury the story in the business trades, and pivot to another strategy."
"What are you proposing, Daniel?" Samuel asked softly.
"She wanted a war for the New Jersey terminal," Daniel said, reaching down to pick up one of the encrypted smartphones he had taken from Maya's purse. "I'm going to give her one. But we aren't playing defense anymore."
Chapter 6: The Interrogation Room
At 9:00 AM the following morning, the interrogation room at the Hartford Central Police Station smelled of stale coffee, industrial floor wax, and damp raincoats.
Maya sat at the metal table, wearing an oversized gray county jumpsuit over her designer slip. Her hands were cuffed together at the wrists, the metal links clicking against the stainless steel table whenever she moved. Despite the prison garments, her posture remained stiff, her chin tilted upward in defiance.