Chapter 8 - The Price of Treachery
The triplets watched the spectacle not with fear, but with the quiet understanding of children raised by a mother who had never lied to them about the world. Maya, the youngest of the three, looked at the weeping groom and turned to her mother. "Mommy, is he crying because he made bad choices?" Emily brushed a stray lock of hair behind Maya's ear. "Yes, darling. When people build castles out of lies, they shouldn't be surprised when the rain washes them away." David looked up from the ground, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "You planned this! You came here to destroy me!" Emily stepped closer, until she stood directly above him. "No, David. You invited me. You spent two hundred dollars on custom embossed paper and express courier fees just to enjoy the sight of my humiliation. You constructed this stage yourself. I simply chose not to play the role you wrote for me." Arthur motioned to two legal process servers who had been standing quietly beside the catering tent. The men in gray suits stepped forward, producing a thick sheaf of legal summons and dropping them squarely onto David’s lap. "Child support arrears covering six years, calculated against your claimed net worth of twelve million dollars," Arthur announced pleasantly. "Along with a freeze on all personal assets pending the fraud investigation into your false investor disclosures."
