Chapter 4 - The Confrontation
"Mother," Ethan said, turning to her with a look of utter panic. "Look at them. Look at these boys!"
Eleanor barely spared the children a glance, though her eyes twitched when she saw Caleb staring right back at her without a trace of fear.
"This is a low, distasteful publicity stunt," Eleanor declared, her voice carrying across the adjacent tables. "Victoria, I don't know whose children you bought or hired for this pathetic little spectacle, but coming here to disrupt my son's wedding to a Senator's daughter is beyond uncouth. You will leave these premises immediately."
She waved her hand dismissively toward her security detail. "Escort Ms. Vance and these... children... off the property."
The two large security guards stepped forward. Before they could reach our table, however, two taller men in crisp black suits stepped smoothly between them and Eleanor.
Marcus, my head of personal security and a former military commander, looked down at Eleanor’s estate guards with cold indifference. "Touch her or the children, and you will be on the ground before you can draw a breath."
"How dare you!" Eleanor gasped, taking a step back. "This is private property! I am Eleanor Montgomery! I own this land!"
"Actually, Eleanor," I said, rising slowly from my chair, my emerald gown cascading around me. "You don't."
Eleanor froze. "What did you say?"
I took a small, elegant sip from my water glass. "Eldenwood Estate was put up as collateral eighteen months ago to secure a sixty-million-dollar liquidity loan for Montgomery Media Holdings. When your company defaulted on its quarterly covenant three weeks ago, that debt was acquired by a private equity firm named Apex Capital."
I pulled a sleek silver smartphone from my clutch and tapped the screen twice.
"And as of four o'clock yesterday afternoon, Apex Capital was bought out entirely by Vanguard Holdings. Which means, Eleanor..." I smiled warmly at her horrified face. "I own this house. I own these gardens. And right now, you are holding a wedding on my lawn without a permit."
The surrounding guests gasped. Whispers erupted like wildfire across the venue.
"Vanguard Holdings?" whispered a bank director sitting at Table 12. "Victoria Vance is the head of Vanguard? They just acquired the Midwest Logistics Network!"
"She owns Eldenwood?" another guest exclaimed in shock.
Eleanor’s face went from pale to ghostly white. Her foundation seemed to crumble in real-time. "You... you're lying. That's impossible. You were nothing! You were a nobody from Ohio!"
"I was a nobody who worked while you slept," I said softly, stepping closer to her until I could smell her expensive lavender perfume. "I built an empire while yours was quietly rotting from the inside out. I didn't come here to cause a scene, Eleanor. You invited me to mock me. I simply accepted the invitation to collect what's mine."
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At that exact moment, the brass doors of the main manor house opened, and Caroline Hastings—clad in a massive, multi-thousand-dollar lace wedding gown—stepped out onto the patio alongside her father, Senator Hastings.
"What is going on here?" the Senator demanded, his boomingly authoritative political voice cutting through the chatter. "Why isn't the music playing? Ethan, why aren't you at the altar?"
