Chapter 12 - The Ghost of the Bennett Dynasty
The morning sun broke over the Las Vegas strip, painting the glass towers in hues of bronze and fire.
In the executive boardroom of Vance & Bennett Holdings, the tension was thick enough to suffocate a man.
Gabriel placed a thick dossier on the polished mahogany table between Luca and me.
Photographs spilled across the wood, showing an elderly woman stepping out of a private Gulfstream jet at McCarran Airport.
She was tall, impeccably groomed, draped in a tailored charcoal cashmere coat, and carrying a walking stick with a silver falcon head.
Her face was lined with age, but her eyes possessed the predatory stillness of an eagle waiting for prey.
Eleanor Bennett had not set foot in Nevada for twenty years.
According to corporate records Gabriel had unearthed overnight, the initial seed money Ryan used to launch his empire had not been his own.
It had been drawn from the Bennett Heritage Trust, an offshore entity registered in the Cayman Islands under Eleanor’s sole control.
When Ryan went down, the state seized his personal accounts and properties, which were subsequently auctioned and acquired by my firm and Luca's consortium.
Eleanor’s legal team had filed an emergency injunction at the Clark County District Court at dawn.
She was claiming that Ryan had no legal authority to pledge those assets as collateral.
She asserted that every building, every land deed, and every patent belonged to the trust, not the disgraced son who had squandered them.
"She wants the entire portfolio back," I said, leaning back in my leather chair.
"The land for the medical center, the corporate headquarters, and the consulting licenses."
"She doesn't just want the money," Luca said, pouring two cups of black coffee.
"She wants you stripped of everything you won in the divorce."
"She sees you as an outsider who humiliated the family name in the national press."
The phone on the conference desk buzzed sharply.
My executive assistant’s voice trembled slightly through the intercom.
"Mrs. Bennett... Eleanor Bennett is in the reception lobby."
"She has four attorneys with her, and she insists on seeing you immediately."
Luca looked at me, giving me the choice to refuse.
I stood up, smoothed down the lapels of my tailored emerald blazer, and took a deep breath.
"Send her in," I ordered calmly.
The double doors swung open moments later.
Eleanor Bennett entered the room with an aura of absolute aristocratic supremacy that demanded submission.
Her gaze swept across the panoramic view of the city before landing directly on me.
There was no warmth in her eyes, only the cold calculation of an empress inspecting a rebellious colony.
"Claire," she said, her voice like crushed velvet over gravel.
"You look remarkably well for a woman who clawed her way out of the gutter."
"And you look remarkably lively for a woman whose obituary was published a decade ago," I replied evenly.
Eleanor smiled, a thin, cruel arch of crimson lips.
"Death is a convenient disguise when one is waiting for fools to exhaust themselves."
"My son was an idiot who let his appetites ruin his intellect."
"He deserved the prison cell you put him in."
She paused, stepping closer to the conference table, her cane tapping rhythmically against the hardwood floor.
"However, Claire, Ryan's stupidity does not grant you the right to keep what belongs to my blood."
"You have forty-eight hours to sign over the deeds to the downtown corridor and dissolve your claims."
May you like
"If you refuse, I will drag you through federal courts until every dime of your new fortune is devoured by legal fees."
"And when you are bankrupt once again, I will ensure you cannot find a job cleaning motel rooms on Boulder Highway."
