I turned my back and looked at the crowd of two hundred guests.
These were the elites of the city. The judges, the bank presidents, the socialites who had watched Eleanor sneer at me for thirty-six months. Many of them had joined in on the laughter. Many of them had refused to shake my hand at dinner parties.
Now, they stood frozen, terrified that Arthur Vance’s gaze would land on them.
Arthur Sterling stepped forward, his hands clasped humbly in front of his stomach. "Mr. Vance... Arthur... please understand, none of us knew. If we had realized that Vivienne was your blood—"
"That is precisely the problem, Sterling," Arthur Vance interrupted, his voice dripping with venom. "You only recognize human dignity when it comes with a net worth attached."
Arthur looked around the room, his eyes searing every face into his memory.
"Every firm represented in this room will undergo an audit by my compliance division within the week," Arthur announced calmly. "If your books are dirty, pray. If your loans are held by Vance Capital, prepare your liquid reserves. This evening’s entertainment is concluded. Leave."
There was no polite farewell. There was no mingling.
Two hundred of the city’s most arrogant elites practically trampled one another in their desperate rush toward the side exits, desperate to escape the wrath of the Vance patriarch.
Within three minutes, the ballroom was empty.
Only the splintered wood, the spilled wine, the torn emerald chiffon, and the obsidian black card remained on the floor.
The female doctor gently touched my arm. "Miss Vance, your blood pressure is stabilizing, but we should get you to the private wing at St. Jude's immediately. The stress could trigger early labor."
"I’m ready," I whispered.
Arthur Vance walked over, bending down with an old man’s deliberate care to pick up my obsidian card from the floor. He wiped the dust off against his sleeve and gently placed it into the pocket of the cashmere coat wrapped around me.
"Let’s go home, Vivi," he said, offering his arm.
I took it. And for the first time in three years, I felt like I could breathe.
By 8:00 AM the following morning, the financial world awoke to a massacre.
The financial headlines screamed in bold, black ink:
**GREYSON LOGISTICS COLLAPSES: VANCE CAPITAL FORECLOSES ON $84M DEBT.**
**GREYSON FAMILY EVICTED FROM RIVERSIDE ESTATE AMID ALLEGATIONS OF FRAUD AND BATTERY.**
Down at the county courthouse, the scene was chaotic.
Reporters swarmed the steps as Eleanor Greyson, wearing a trench coat over yesterday’s wrinkled evening dress, was led out in handcuffs. The security footage of the ballroom had been leaked to the press at midnight. By dawn, it had racked up fifty million views worldwide.
The public was outraged. The sight of a billionaire matriarch violently tearing the maternity dress off an eight-month-pregnant woman while her daughter screamed slurs had sparked universal fury.
The district attorney, sensing an easy political victory and fully aware of Arthur Vance’s watchful eye, had wasted no time. Eleanor was charged with felony battery of an expectant mother, civil rights violations, and conspiracy. Bail was set at ten million dollars—an impossible sum for a family whose bank accounts had been frozen by federal marshals hours before.
Chloe’s wedding had turned into a funeral. Her newlywed husband’s family, horrified by the viral footage and terrified of Vance’s retribution, had filed for an annulment before breakfast. Chloe was left sitting on the curb outside her mother’s gated community, surrounded by four cardboard boxes of her personal belongings, crying into her hands as moving trucks cleared out the furniture.
