Chapter 6 - The Shattered Glass
The room erupted into chaos.
“Wife?!” Derek screamed, dropping his glass to the floor where it smashed violently. “What the hell are you talking about? She’s my fiancée! We have a wedding contract!”
“Your wedding contract expired forty-eight hours ago when Elena canceled the joint marital account,” Arthur Pendelton announced, stepping out from behind Julian’s security team holding a thick leather briefcase.
Arthur pulled out a stack of legal documents, setting them squarely on the head table in front of Derek.
“As of eight o'clock this morning,” Arthur continued, “Elena Mercer became Elena Vance-Vane. Under the terms of the late Beatrice Mercer’s trust, all commercial zoning rights, real estate holdings, and liquid funds have been officially transferred into the Vance-Vane Corporation.”
Sloane stood up so fast she knocked her chair over backward. “That’s impossible! The trust was supposed to come to me if she died!”
“I didn't die, Sloane,” I said, stepping closer to her, looking her dead in the eye. “Though I know how much you prayed for it while you stood over my ICU bed trying on my clothes.”
Sloane went ghost-white. “I... I didn't—”
“'She looks smaller like this,'” I quoted, my voice cold as winter ice. “'Help me with the back, Derek. She won't need it.'”
Whispers exploded through the ballroom like wildfire. The high-society guests began leaning in, filming the confrontation on their phones, their eyes wide with scandal.
Derek’s face twisted into a mask of desperate rage. He lunged across the table toward me. “You bitch! You ruined everything! I spent millions on this firm!”
Before Derek’s fingers could come within two feet of my face, Julian moved.
With terrifying speed and effortless strength, Julian caught Derek by the throat, slamming him hard against the head table. Glasses rattled, plates shattered, and Derek let out a choked gasp for air.
Julian leaned in close, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper that carried across the quiet room.
“If you touch my wife again, Hale,” Julian growled, “I won't just ruin your firm. I will buy your prison and manage your cell personally.”
Julian released him, shoving him back into his chair. Derek collapsed, clutching his throat, coughing violently.
Julian pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his fingers, and tossed it onto Derek’s plate.
“Oh, and Derek,” Julian added smoothly, pulling a second document from Arthur’s file. “My risk assessment team audited your bridge loan application this morning. We found four million dollars in embezzled charity funds transferred into a private account in the Cayman Islands registered under your name and Sloane Mercer’s.”
Sloane let out a blood-curdling shriek. “Derek! You said it was untraceable!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” Derek screamed back, turning on her with violent fury.
“The NYPD Financial Crimes Unit is waiting in the lobby,” Julian concluded, turning his back on them as if they were garbage on the street.
He offered his arm to me. “Shall we go, Mrs. Vance-Vane? The champagne here is mediocre at best.”
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I looked at my parents, who stood paralyzed, their social standing crushed into dust before New York’s elite. I looked at Sloane, who was weeping hysterically as her polyester dress ripped along the side seam. And I looked at Derek, whose life was officially over.
I took Julian’s arm, smiled, and turned my back on all of them.
