Chapter 4 - Blood and Heritage
A collective gasp echoed across the vast room. Victoria dropped her champagne glass completely; it shattered against the marble tiles, sending crystal shards and sparkling wine over the shoes of the guests. Marcus stood paralyzed, his mouth hanging open, his arms still awkwardly extended in mid-air where he had tried to offer Arthur a handshake.
“F-father...?” Marcus stammered, his voice cracking like a terrified child’s. “That’s... that’s impossible. Subeo worked at a coffee shop on 4th Street! She has no family! She told me her father was an engineer who worked overseas!”
Arthur Vance turned slowly, his eyes locking onto Marcus with the lethal precision of an executioner. The warm gentleness he had shown me evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, predatory chill that made Marcus take a half-step backward.
“My daughter, Subeo Vance, wanted to live a normal life,” Arthur said, his voice ringing clearly into every corner of the silent ballroom. “When her mother passed, Subeo chose to earn her own way through university, refusing my funds because she wanted to find genuine people. She wanted to marry a man who loved her for her heart, not for my balance sheet. She begged me not to interfere, not to flash my wealth, and to let her build an honest family. And I honored her wish. Until tonight.”
Arthur pointed down at the ruined, torn pages lying near Marcus’s shoe.
“You threw away her gift,” Arthur continued, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register. “She spent five months contacting my personal preservation team to restore photographs of your maternal grandparents—photographs that my family company safely archived sixty years ago when the Boston shipping warehouse burned down. She wanted to give your mother a piece of her history. And you threw it in the trash.”
Victoria looked as if she were about to faint, her hand clawing at the nearby mantelpiece for support. “Arthur... please... we didn't know... Marcus didn't understand—”
“Shut up, Victoria,” Arthur snapped without turning his head. “You have spent three decades pretending your family line is royalty, yet you couldn't recognize real nobility if it stood in front of you. You called my daughter an eyesore? You told her that her child—my grandson—was an embarrassment to your pathetic social circle?”
Marcus’s face had drained of all color. Sweat beaded across his forehead, running down his cheeks. He fell to his knees right in front of the marble trash can, his manicured hands frantically scooping up the wet, torn pages of the album he had discarded moments earlier, trying desperately to smooth out the crumpled edges.
“Subeo, baby, please,” Marcus begged, looking up at me with wide, frantic eyes, his voice trembling uncontrollably. “I was just stressed! The contracts... the investors... I wasn't thinking clearly! You know how much I love you! You know I didn't mean it! Tell your father! We’re a family!”
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I looked down at the man I had loved for three years. In that single moment, the illusion shattered completely. I didn't see a charming, successful partner. I saw a hollow, cowardly parasite who only respected power, cruelty, and money.
“You told me to walk in the rain, Marcus,” I said, my voice steady and devoid of tears. “You told me to leave through the side door like trash.”
