Chapter 7 - Unmasking the Queen
The silence in the Harborview penthouse was so absolute that the driving sleet against the towering glass sounded like gunfire. Eleanor gripped the edges of the table, her knuckles white beneath her polished rings.
"You're making a fool of yourself, Cormack!" Eleanor hissed, her poise rapidly deteriorating into frantic anger. "Bringing a common piano tuner into the sacred council of the family? She manipulated you! She confessed with her own mouth that she only wanted your fortune!"
"She confessed to words you forced down her throat under threat of murder," Cormack replied coldly. He reached into his coat and produced a sleek digital tablet, tossing it onto the glass table. "Play it, Dermit."
A high-definition audio recording filled the room. Eleanor’s own voice echoed with venomous clarity, captured by the discreet security sensors Sloan's father had installed in the church hall decades ago:
'You will tell Cormack you never loved him. You will tell him he repulses you. If you shed one tear, or if you hesitate for half a second, the power to your mother’s ventilator in Quincy will fail before you reach the bus stop...'
Murmurs of shock rippled through the twelve capos. Even the ruthless emissary from New York leaned back, eyeing Eleanor with cold disdain. Under the ancient rules of the syndicate, targeting an innocent mother to usurp leadership was the ultimate violation of honor.
"That proves nothing! It's a digital fabrication!" Eleanor shouted, her voice shrill.
"Then let's look at the financial trail," Sloan spoke up, her voice clear and commanding. She unlocked the brass latch of her father's wooden case with two deliberate clicks. She pulled out the antique ledger and tossed it directly in front of Vincent Morretti. "Pages forty through eighty. Secret routing numbers from the Sheridan port terminals straight into offshore accounts managed by Eleanor and the Morretti defectors. She wasn't building an alliance with Chicago. She was selling your Boston supply lines to New York for thirty cents on the dollar."
Morretti picked up the ledger, scanned the intricate handwriting, and his face hardened. "These are Arthur Sheridan’s verified ledger codes. Eleanor... you've been skimming from our joint shipments for twelve years."
"She also arranged my father's death," Cormack added, stepping behind Eleanor’s chair. He placed his hands on the backrest, leaning down until his lips were inches from his mother's ear. "Digitalis administered through his evening brandy. You thought you buried the truth with him. But Arthur gave the key to the only man in this city who knew how to listen to hidden vibrations."
Eleanor lunged forward, reaching for a small pearl-handled pistol hidden inside her purse, but before her fingers could touch the grip, Cormack’s hand clamped down over her wrist like a steel vice. With a single, effortless twist, the gun clattered harmlessly across the glass table.
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"You are stripped of your name, your assets, and your standing," Cormack announced to the room. "Effective immediately, Eleanor Sheridan is banished to our estate in northern Maine. No telephone. No staff. No visitors. If she steps one foot outside the perimeter, she will be treated as an enemy combatant."
Two armed Sheridan guards stepped forward, hauling a screaming Eleanor away from the table. As she was dragged toward the elevators, her furious curses faded into the storm, leaving the boardroom in stunned, reverent silence.
