Chapter 3 - The Unraveling
Eleanor swallowed hard, her throat visibly dry. She tried to summon back the haughty, untouchable demeanor that had terrorized me for three years, but her lower lip gave a faint, betraying tremor.
"I... I don't know who you think you are," Eleanor stammered, puffing out her chest in a desperate bid for authority. "This is a private family matter! That girl—that gold-digger—stole a million-dollar diamond ring belonging to my daughter! We have every right to—"
Slap.
The sound was like a gunshot.
It wasn't my father who struck her. It was Richard, Arthur's chief legal counsel and head of security, whose palm moved faster than the human eye could track. Eleanor stumbled back three steps, crashing directly into a tiered display of crystal champagne flutes. The glasses shattered in a deafening cascade of tinkling glass and expensive alcohol, soaking the hem of her designer evening gown.
"You miserable old witch," Richard said smoothly, adjusting his cuffs with terrifying calm. "You don't speak to Arthur Vance that way. And you certainly don't lay a hand on an heir to the Vance Global estate."
The silence in the ballroom became absolute. You could hear the faint hum of the air conditioning units high above.
"Vance?" someone whispered in the crowd. "Vance Global? As in... the international shipping and real estate conglomerate?"
"No," another voice choked out, trembling with horror. "Not just shipping. They own half the commercial skyscrapers on the East Coast. They own... they own this hotel."
Dominic staggered backward, his knees buckling slightly until he hit the edge of a mahogany table. He stared at me with wide, horrified eyes, as if seeing a ghost.
"V-Vivienne?" Dominic stammered, his voice pitching up into a pathetic squeak. "Your... your last name isn't Vance. On your resume, when we met, you said your last name was... was Mercer!"
"Mercer is my mother's maiden name," I replied quietly, stepping away from the champagne fountain. "I used it because I wanted to know if you loved me for who I was, or if you were just another social-climbing parasite like your mother and sister." I looked him dead in the eye. "I got my answer."
Chloe’s face turned the color of curdled milk. She clutched her bare ring finger, her hands trembling violently. "No—no, this is a trick! They're actors! Look at her clothes, she was wearing a dress from a discount boutique! People like that don't—they can't—"
"Quiet, trash," Arthur said coldly, turning his gaze onto Chloe.
He didn't raise his voice, yet Chloe instinctively shrank back, pressing herself against her stunned new husband, a trust-fund heir named Brad whose family had financed half the wedding.
"Richard," Arthur commanded without looking back. "Play the footage."
May you like
Richard pulled a sleek black tablet from his jacket and tapped the screen. A second later, the massive projector screen behind the wedding altar—the one that had been looping romantic slideshows of Chloe and Brad all evening—suddenly flickered.
The soft, romantic music cut out. Replaced by high-definition, wide-angle security footage of the ballroom entrance from twenty minutes prior.
