Chapter 3 - The Golden Daughter’s Rage
The news of the secret will hit my family like a tactical strike.
Three days after Grayson delivered the trust documents, my mother and Melanie stormed the legal offices of Grayson, Vance & Sterling where Wyatt and I were sitting with our team of litigators. Linda looked completely disheveled, her expensive highlights frizzy and unwashed, her face pale beneath frantic layers of powder. Melanie wore a thousand-dollar trench coat, holding a pair of designer sunglasses like a shield, her lips pulled back in a snarl.
""This is fraud! It's a forged document!"" Linda shrieked the moment she pushed past the paralegal into the conference room. She slammed both palms down on the polished rosewood table. ""Arthur died out of his mind! Richard is his only son! We have lived in that house for ten years, we maintained the gardens, we ran the social circuit! You cannot throw us out because this ungrateful little bitch fell on a walkway!""
""Fell on a walkway?"" Wyatt stood up, towering over my mother, his six-foot-two frame radiating pure menace. ""Your husband smashed a construction brick across her face while you clapped your hands and cheered. We have your face on four different television networks, Linda. The whole world knows what you are.""
""Shut up, Wyatt!"" Melanie screamed, pointing a manicured finger at me. ""You belong with me! I am the one who went to private finishing schools! I am the one who knows how to be the wife of a multi-millionaire! Sadie was always the ugly duckling, the little mouse who worked in the kitchen while Mom and Dad showed me off! You sold your company for twenty million dollars, Wyatt, and you're wasting it on a girl whose face is permanently ruined!""
""My company,"" Wyatt said with ice in his tone, ""was built from the ground up because Sadie worked sixteen-hour shifts alongside me bookkeeping and running dispatch for five years when I had nothing. She is a million times the human being you will ever be, Melanie. And her face is more beautiful to me than any hollow, plastic shell.""
Melanie’s eyes flashed with venom. She turned toward Samuel Grayson. ""I don't care what some senile old lawyer says. My father’s criminal defense attorney has already filed an emergency injunction. You can't freeze our accounts! We have a twenty-five-thousand-dollar country club membership due tomorrow, and my credit cards declined at Neiman Marcus this morning!""
Grayson didn't even look up from his spectacles. He carefully slipped a fountain pen into his vest pocket.
""Miss Hayes, the accounts you are referring to were corporate expense lines belonging to Arthur Hayes Logistics,"" Grayson said calmly. ""Your father has been using those accounts fraudulently since 2016. Because the trust deed has been officially verified by the Probate Court of Illinois, all corporate lines, all personal stipends, and all credit facilities associated with the estate have been re-assigned exclusively to the sole trustee: Sadie Hayes.""
Linda gasped, clutching her throat. ""What are you talking about? Where are we supposed to get money for Richard's bail? His lawyer wants a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer by noon!""
""You might try looking for employment, Mrs. Hayes,"" Grayson replied coolly. ""Or perhaps you can sell the luxury vehicles that were purchased with the company's embezzled capital. However, I should inform you that Detective Beckett and the State Financial Crimes Unit have placed an asset freeze on your personal vehicles pending the grand jury inquiry into ten years of systemic grand larceny.""
""No!"" Linda lunged toward me, her fingers hooked like claws. ""You give us the checkbook, Sadie! You owe us! We fed you! We clothed you! We let you stay in our home!""
Wyatt instantly stepped between us, catching my mother by both wrists with crushing force, shoving her back into the conference room chairs.
""Do not take another step toward my fiancé,"" Wyatt growled, his voice vibrating through the room. ""The only place you are going is out this door before I have the armed guards downstairs drag you into the street like the criminals you are.""
Two armed security officers appeared in the doorway, their hands resting on their holstered sidearms.
""Mrs. Hayes, Miss Hayes,"" the senior guard said firmly. ""You have been served with formal trespass notices. You have fifteen minutes to vacate these premises, or you will be arrested for contempt and criminal trespass.""
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Melanie burst into furious tears, stomping her foot like an enraged toddler. ""You think you've won, Sadie? You think you're going to live happily ever after with my man in that mansion? Dad has friends inside county lockup! He will never let you enjoy a single dime!""
""Your father,"" I said, speaking clearly and loudly for the first time since they had entered, ""is going to spend the next fifteen years of his life in a maximum-security state penitentiary. And while he is eating off a plastic tray in a cell, Wyatt and I will be sleeping in Grandfather's home. Now get out of my sight.""
