Chapter 3 - The Dropped Folder
"What did you just say?" Claire whispered, her voice dropping into a dangerously shrill register.
"The wedding is canceled,"
I repeated, gently sliding my arms under my mother's shoulders and knees to keep her stable until the paramedics arrived. "Get out of my sight."
"You can't cancel this wedding!" Richard roared, his face turning a deep, mottled purple.
"Do you have any idea how much money I put into this venue? The contracts are signed! The merger between our firms depends on this marriage!"
"The merger?" I let out a dry, bitter laugh.
My eyes fell on the blue manila folder lying on the marble floor three feet away—the folder I had dropped the moment my mother fell.
When I lunged forward to catch my mother, the contents of that folder had spilled slightly onto the floorboards. White printed sheets, bank ledgers, and certified forensic reports peeked out from beneath the paper cover.
I reached out with one hand, pulling the folder toward me while keeping my mother secure with the other.
"You mean the merger where your company, Vance International, absorbs my father's remaining liquid estate?" I asked, looking up at Richard. "The one where you conveniently offered to 'manage' my family's legacy trust because you claimed my mother was too mentally frail to handle it?"
Richard froze. His eyes darted down to the blue folder in my hand.
For the last three months, Claire had been pressing me to sign over the executive power of attorney for my late father's estate. She had claimed it was a standard legal formality before our marriage—a way to "protect our future family."
But two hours ago, my father's former corporate auditor had delivered that blue folder directly to my dressing room.
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Inside were bank records showing that Richard Vance had quietly embezzled over four million dollars from Vance International's operating accounts to cover massive offshore gambling debts. He was bankrupt. The lavish wedding, the designer dress, the high-society invitations—it was all an elaborate illusion built on borrowed time.
They didn't just want a wedding. They needed my father's estate to keep Richard out of federal prison.
