Chapter 8 - The Price of Treason
While the party raged under the marquee, the drama was far from over outside the wrought-iron gates of the estate.
Grant Holloway sat in the back of a rented black town car parked five hundred yards down the winding oak-lined driveway, biting his fingernails until they bled. His tailored tuxedo jacket was rumpled, his silk bow tie hung loose around his unbuttoned collar, and sweat poured down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt.
On the passenger seat beside him sat an empty duffel bag and a one-way first-class ticket to Panama City departing from Newark Airport at midnight. All he needed was Victoria Sterling to walk out of that tent with the signed cashier’s check for his retainer fee. Seven hundred and fifty thousand from Alex had been the dream, but two hundred and fifty thousand from Arthur Sterling’s private fund was more than enough to start over on a beach where extradition treaties were fuzzy suggestions.
He checked his watch for the fiftieth time. 4:45 PM.
Suddenly, the passenger door was yanked open.
Grant jumped, a frantic grin forming on his face. “Victoria! Did you get the—?”
The words died in his throat.
Standing outside the door was not Victoria Sterling.
It was Sheriff Miller, a towering, weathered man who had bought funeral wreaths and prom corsages from Sophie’s shop for thirty years, flanked by two armed state troopers and an agent in a dark windbreaker bearing yellow federal lettering: FBI.
“Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Holloway,” Sheriff Miller said, his voice as heavy and unyielding as a slab of granite.
Grant’s stomach dropped into his shoes. “Sheriff! What... what is this? There’s a misunderstanding! I’m the groom! I’m supposed to be at my wedding!”
“Funny thing about that, Grant,” Sheriff Miller said, chewing on an unlit toothpick as he gripped his duty belt. “I just got off the radio with the pastor inside. Seems the bride found herself a real man about two hours ago. And the feds here have a few questions about some fraudulent bank loans, corporate extortion, and wire fraud running through the Bennett Blooms accounts.”
“No! That wasn't me! That was the Sterling family! They forced me!” Grant shrieked, scrambling across the leather back seat toward the opposite door.
He threw the other door open, ready to bolt into the dense woods lining the estate, but the moment his feet hit the gravel, two heavy hands slammed him against the roof of the car. The metal groaned under the impact as cold steel handcuffs snapped around his wrists with brutal efficiency.
“Grant Holloway, you are under arrest,” the federal agent recited mechanically, reading him his rights while pressing his face into the warm hood of the car.
Down the driveway, Sophie and Alex walked out onto the stone terrace of the main house, holding hands.
Grant thrashed against the handcuffs, his wild, bloodshot eyes locking onto Sophie standing beside the billionaire. The sight of her—radiant, untouchable, draped in ivory silk with Alexander Reed’s arm wrapped protectively around her waist—completely broke what little sanity Grant had left.
“Sophie!” Grant screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic wail that echoed across the manicured lawns. “Sophie, tell them! Tell them you love me! Tell them I was doing it for us! I was doing it to save the shop! You can't let them take me! Sophie!”
Sophie didn't look angry. She didn't look triumphant. She simply looked at him with an expression of profound, quiet pity—the way one might look at an insect struggling in a web it had woven itself.
She didn't utter a single word. She simply reached out with her free hand, plucked a single white garden rose from the boutonnière on Alex’s lapel, and let it fall onto the stone patio, where the summer breeze carried its petals away into the grass.
May you like
Then, she turned her back on him.
“Get him out of here,” Sheriff Miller ordered, shoving Grant into the back of the cruiser. The heavy metal door slammed shut, cutting off Grant’s frantic screams forever, and the siren wailed into the distance as the patrol cars rolled down the lane, clearing the air of deceit once and for all."
