Chapter 429:
Tiffany sniffed, wiping her eyes carefully to avoid smudging her mascara. She paused, as if reluctant to speak, planting the seed with expert precision. “Nanny Martha,” she whispered. “She… she came by to drop off your laundry yesterday. You gave her a key years ago, remember? I saw her in the study. She said she was dusting near the painting.”
Sterling stopped. Nanny Martha. The woman who had practically raised him when his own mother was too busy with galas. The woman who made him tomato soup when he was sick and defended him against his father’s harsh words.
“Martha?” Sterling repeated.
“I saw her on the phone,” Tiffany added, her voice trembling. “She sounded… secretive. She mentioned ‘payment.’ And Sterling… she’s been complaining about her grandson’s tuition lately.”
A dark, irrational fury seized Sterling. It was easier to believe in the betrayal of a servant than the betrayal of the woman he was sleeping with. It was easier to be angry than to be a fool.
“That ungrateful old hag,” Sterling spat.
He grabbed his coat. “I’m going home.”
“Sterling, wait—” Quincy tried to stop him.
“Stay here and handle the press!” Sterling shouted. He stormed out the back exit, into the rain, his mind a singular, bloody track of vengeance.
Up in the viewing box, Aurora watched Sterling flee. She felt no satisfaction, only a cold, grim finality.
“He’s going to the penthouse,” Aurora said quietly. “Activate the surveillance grid there. I want to see everything.”
The elevator ride to the penthouse felt like a descent into hell. Sterling watched the numbers tick up, his reflection in the polished brass doors looking back at him—disheveled, wild-eyed, a man whose kingdom had just turned to ash.
𝓒𝓱𝓮𝓬𝓴 𝓲𝓷 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮: ⳑ𝗮𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀⧼ⅽ𝗼𝗺⧽
He burst through the front door.
Nanny Martha was in the living room, folding a throw blanket. She was a stout woman in her late sixties, with gray hair pulled back in a sensible bun and hands roughened by decades of work. She had served the Sterling branch of the family for forty years, long before the Kensington merger.
She jumped when the door slammed against the wall.
“Mr. Sterling?” she asked, clutching the blanket to her chest. “You’re back early. How was the—”
“How much?” Sterling screamed. He marched across the room, his wet shoes squeaking on the marble.
Martha blinked, confused. “Sir?”
“How much did Zack Miller pay you?” Sterling grabbed a vase from the console table—a cheap ceramic piece Martha had bought him for his tenth birthday that he kept out of sentimental habit—and hurled it at the floor.
Crash.
Martha flinched, stepping back. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
Tiffany entered the apartment behind him. She stood in the doorway, holding Sterling’s iPad which she had grabbed from the entryway table. “Sterling, look,” she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “I just got the alert. I linked the household accounts to verify the expenses like you asked.”
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