Chapter 3 - Strip Her Bare
Vanessa began to back away slowly, her designer heels sinking into the damp earth beside the driveway. She glanced toward the iron gates, looking for an exit route, but two security vehicles were already blocking the perimeter.
"Nathan," she cried out, her voice cracking into shrill hysteria. "Do something! You told me she was nobody! You told me she would take a couple hundred thousand dollars and disappear into an apartment in New Jersey! You swore we’d raise our baby in this mansion!"
I walked down the stone stairs, my heels clicking rhythmic and deliberate against the flagstones. With every step I took, Nathan seemed to shrink another inch. When I stopped in front of Vanessa, she recoiled, clutching my grandmother’s vintage Chanel bag like a shield.
"The handbag," I said softly.
"What?" she squeaked.
"You are holding a 1968 caviar leather handbag that belonged to my mother," I said, extending my hand with an open palm. "Give it back."
"Nathan bought this for me!" she screamed, looking to my husband for support. But Nathan was staring at his shoes, entirely defeated, trembling from head to toe. "Nathan, tell her!"
"Nathan bought that bag with the company account," Evelyn Cross interjected, holding up an itemized expense sheet. "Technically, taking that off the property constitutes grand larceny under New York penal law. Hand it over, Ms. Morales, or Marcus will simply retrieve it from your grip and let the arriving state troopers charge you on the spot."
Sobbing with furious indignation, Vanessa yanked the strap off her shoulder and threw it at my feet. Marcus caught it in midair with effortless grace and placed it neatly into my hands.
"Next," I said, pointing directly at the sun hat resting on her head. "That hat was customized for me in Milan. Take it off."
Vanessa snatched the wide-brimmed hat off her scalp, her styled hair tumbling out in messy disarray. She hurled it onto the driveway gravel. "Take your stupid garbage! Nathan will buy me ten more! We don't need your dusty junk!"
"You won't be buying anything, Vanessa," I whispered, leaning in close enough that she could smell my jasmine perfume. "And you have one more thing that belongs to my family."
I reached out and lightly brushed the brilliant three-carat diamond dangling from her left earlobe. Vanessa flinched violently, as if my finger burned her flesh.
"My grandmother wore these earrings to her wedding fifty years ago," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. "She survived a war, built an empire, and raised three children while working sixteen hours a day. She was a woman of honor, grace, and unmatched resilience. For you to wear her jewelry around your neck while rubbing your infidelity in my face on an open internet broadcast is an insult to the grave she rests in."
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"I... I can't take them off," Vanessa stammered, tears ruining her heavy mascara. "The clasps are tight. They hurt!"
"Take them off," I commanded, "or I will personally have the county sheriff unclip them while you sit handcuffed in the back of a squad car."
