Chapter 152: The Devil Lost The Throne
Damian stood tall, his tailored charcoal suit masking the tight bandages beneath, his obsidian eyes sweeping the room with cold authority. "This unauthorized session ends now, Thornton. Vacate my seat before security removes you from the building."
"Security won’t be touching anyone, Damian," Thornton replied smoothly, sliding a thick, red-stamped legal injunction across the polished wood.
"As of eight-thirty this morning, the regulatory commission accepted formal evidence of severe capital misappropriation tied to the Vance enterprises, a transaction made four years ago. Your executive voting rights and personal access to Sterling Enterprise treasury reserves have been temporarily suspended pending a federal audit."
A heavy, suffocating silence dropped over the room.
Clara stepped forward, her sharp eyes darting over the documents. "This injunction requires board majority approval..."
"Which I obtained forty minutes ago," Thornton cut in, a thin smile touching his lips. "While Damian was busy playing with ghosts at his country estate. You have no standing here, Mr. Sterling. You are barred from the premises."
Across the room, Julian reached for his encrypted phone, his jaw tight as he prepared to activate the Montgomery maritime line’s emergency liquidity fund to buy out the dissenting shares on the open market.
He dialed his private London banker, stepping back toward the glass windows.
"Liquidate the secondary European reserve," Julian commanded in a low, sharp murmur. "Transfer the float directly to..."
"I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Lord Julian," the banker’s voice came back, strained and trembling.
Julian’s hazel eyes narrowed. "What did you just say?"
"A formal decree came through from the Duke’s private council twenty minutes ago," the banker whispered. "Your father has placed the entire Montgomery trust into conservatorship. Your accounts, credit lines, and institutional proxy votes have been frozen. You have zero capital access until you return to London and face the family tribunal."
The line went dead.
Julian stared at the blank screen, the crushing weight of the blow hitting him square in the chest. For the first time in his life, the vast aristocratic fortress that had shielded him from the consequences of the world was completely gone.
He was cut off, penniless in syndicate terms, and powerless to stop the bleed.
"Julian?" Clara’s voice was faint, her emerald eyes catching the sudden, pale shock on his face.
Before Julian could answer, a sickening, sharp intake of breath shattered the room’s focus.
Damian took a single, aggressive step toward Thornton, his fists clenching with lethal intent... and then his entire frame locked.
The immense physical strain of ignoring two fresh gunshot wounds, combined with the spike of blood pressure and the stress of the ambush, finally took its toll.
A sudden, violent tear ripped through his stitched side beneath his shirt. Damian’s breath caught in his throat, a sharp gasp escaping his lips as his balance buckled.
A dark, blooming stain of crimson seeped rapidly through the crisp white fabric of his dress shirt, bleeding directly into the lining of his suit jacket.
"Damian!" Ana gasped, terror shattering her composure as she lunged forward, catching his arm just as his knees threatened to give out.
Damian gripped the edge of the conference table, his knuckles turning stark white as beads of cold sweat broke out across his forehead. His vision blurred, the room tilting violently around him as his body betrayed his iron will.
"Call building security," Thornton commanded the bailiffs, his smile turning predatory as flashbulbs from reporters tipped off in the lobby began flashing through the frosted glass. "Escort the former CEO and his entourage out of the building. The press is going to love this."
Stripped of his corporate throne, bleeding through his clothes, and with Julian’s family fortune locked away, the untouchable Sterling syndicate had just suffered its first catastrophic, public defeat.
________________________
Sirens cut violently through the city traffic as the blacked-out Sterling convoy tore across the asphalt toward hospital Private Wing... the only facility equipped with off-grid surgical suites loyal to the Sterling name.
In the back of the lead SUV, Ana had her hands pressed hard against Damian’s side, her palms slick with his dark, hot blood. Damian’s face was deathly pale, his jaw clenched so tightly the corded muscles in his neck strained against the fabric of his ruined shirt.
Yet, even as his consciousness frayed, his large, trembling hand stayed wrapped around Ana’s wrist, refusing to let her go.
"Hold on, Damian... please just hold on," Ana pleaded, her voice breaking as she leaned over him, her own tears mixing with the red staining his suit.
"Stay with me, Anastasia," Damian rasped, his obsidian eyes fighting through the gray haze of blood loss. "This isn’t... over."
Up front, Julian slammed his hand against the dashboard, his hazel eyes dark with venom. Stripped of his family fortune and watching his closest ally bleed out, every trace of the carefree playboy was gone, replaced by a ruthless resolve to bring down the men responsible.
"Clear the trauma bay, Walter," Julian barked into the radio. "He’s lost too much blood. We stabilize him first, then we take the company back brick by bloody brick."
Across the city, high above the skyline in the penthouse suite of the Sullivan tower, the atmosphere was thick with toxic triumph.
Crystal glasses clinked, filled with vintage amber scotch.
Vivian Stark stood by the expansive glass windows, a dark silk scarf elegantly draped around her shoulder to conceal the thick medical bandages and surgical brace from the dockside ambush.
Despite the lingering pain in her fractured ribs, a feverish, manic satisfaction glittered in her dark eyes as she watched the televised footage of Damian collapsing into the waiting swarm of reporters.
"Look at him," Vivian purred, her voice dripping with venomous obsession as she took a slow sip. "He threw away his entire dynasty for that worthless Vance girl. He thought he was untouchable. He thought he could discard me like trash and face no consequences."
She turned, her red lips curving into a twisted, possessive smile.
"When he is broken, stripped of every dollar and rotting in federal holding, he will realize I was the only woman who could have saved him. When he has nothing left, he will finally belong to me."
Dante Sullivan didn’t join her in front of the skyline.
He sat behind his sprawling steel desk, swirling the liquor in his glass, completely indifferent to Vivian’s twisted fixation on Damian. His cold, calculating gaze was fixed entirely on the high-resolution surveillance monitor built into his desk.
On the glowing screen was a frozen frame of Anastasia from the lobby chaos... her hazel eyes wide with fierce, desperate devotion, her hands covered in blood as she shielded Damian’s collapsing frame.
A slow, predatory smirk carved across Dante’s scarred face. He reached out, his calloused thumb tracing the outline of Ana’s face against the glass.
"Let Damian bleed," Dante murmured, his voice a low, gravelly hum that carried pure malice. "Let him watch his empire crumble to ash. Soon, the Vance family will be called in... and you will be in my arms, Anastasia."
________________________
The smell of sterile antiseptic and the rhythmic beep of heart monitors filled the private recovery room of elite hospital.
Damian lay in the bed, his torso heavily re-bandaged after hours in surgery to repair the torn sutures and internal bleeding. An IV line ran into his hand, and his sharp features were drawn with exhaustion.
Yet, as his obsidian eyes slowly blinked open, the pure, unyielding fire in his gaze hadn’t dimmed in the slightest.
His fingers twitched, immediately seeking warmth... and found Anastasia’s small, cold hand wrapped tightly around his own.
Ana was sitting in the armchair pulled flush against the mattress, dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes, but her hazel gaze was fiercely alert. When she felt him squeeze her hand, a shuddering breath of pure relief slipped past her lips.
"You’re awake," Ana whispered, leaning forward, her other hand gently coming up to cup his stubbled cheek. "Don’t move. The surgeon said the internal stitches need time to hold."
"The board..." Damian’s voice was a rough, dry rasp, his jaw tightening as the reality of his defeat surged back. "Thornton... the company..."
"Let them gloat for tonight," Ana said firmly, her voice carrying a quiet, unshakeable strength he had never heard from her before.
She leaned closer, refusing to let him look away. "You built Sterling Enterprises from nothing with your bare hands, Damian. No ancestral trust fund, no family handouts. Just you. A forged injunction and a corrupt board aren’t going to take that away from you."
Across the room, Clara sat at a glass table with her laptop open, illuminated by the harsh blue glow of spreadsheets and wire routing data. Julian stood behind her, his sleeves rolled up, pointing at a suspicious transaction node on the screen.
"Ana’s right, mate," Julian said, his voice quiet but grim. He looked tired, stripped of his usual aristocratic ease after being cut off by his own father, but entirely resolved. "Thornton didn’t just pull that injunction out of thin air. Clara found the digital paper trail."
Ana gave him a comforting smile, "you will get your throne back Damian... I promise."