Chapter 4 - The Falling House of Cards
Aidan Vance grabbed his chest, swaying dangerously as the color drained from his face.
"My home?" he gasped, his fingers digging into his tuxedo lapels.
"You're taking my home?"
"You built that home using my mother's stolen life insurance payout," I answered, looking him dead in the eyes.
"You didn't earn it."
"You took it from a twelve-year-old child whose mother had just gone into the ground."
"Mabel, have mercy!" Aidan cried, falling to his knees right on the wine-stained floor.
The sight of the proud, arrogant patriarch of the Vance family kneeling in the middle of a wedding banquet shocked the room into absolute silence.
The same guests who had laughed at his cruel jokes moments ago were now pulling their phones out, filming every second of his downfall.
Fiona ran down from the bridal stage, her heavy silk skirts rustling loudly.
"Get up, Dad! Get up right now!" she screamed, yanking at his shoulder with manicured hands.
She spun around, glaring at me with raw, undisguised hatred.
"Are you happy now, Mabel? You ruin everything! You always have!"
"You're jealous because I found Julian, a man from an old-money family, while you had to rot in an office!"
"You lured this man with lies just to humiliate me on the best day of my life!"
Julian Sterling hurried behind Fiona, but he didn't support her.
Instead, he violently grabbed her by the wrist, jerking her backward.
"Fiona, shut up!" Julian roared, his face flushed with panic.
"Julian! Why aren't you defending me?" Fiona shrieked, struggling against his grip.
"We are the Sterlings! We have prestige! We have connections!"
Julian let out a bitter, terrified laugh that sounded half-crazed.
"Prestige? Connections?" Julian turned toward Christian, bowing his head in an immediate, humiliating posture of submission.
"Mr. Montgomery... on behalf of the Sterling family, I swear to you, we had no part in this disgraceful display."
"Julian, what are you doing?" Fiona gasped, her eyes widening in horror.
"The Sterling Trust relies entirely on the commercial shipping lanes controlled by Montgomery Logistics," Julian explained, his voice shaking.
"My father’s entire hedge fund is leveraged against Montgomery Global’s secondary municipal bonds."
Julian looked at Fiona as if she were a plague rat.
"If Christian Montgomery closes his doors to us, the Sterling name won't be worth the paper our marriage license is printed on."
Julian reached up to his lapel, ripped off the white bridal boutonnière, and hurled it onto the floor at Fiona’s feet.
"This wedding is over," Julian announced to the stunned ballroom.
"Julian, no!" Fiona wailed, her voice cracking as she reached for his sleeve.
"We just took our vows twenty minutes ago! The priest signed the register!"
"Then I will file for an annulment before noon tomorrow," Julian snapped, pulling away with absolute disgust.
"I will not let my family’s two-hundred-year-old legacy burn to the ground because my wife and her idiotic father decided to bully a billionaire's wife."
Julian turned on his heel and walked briskly toward the grand exits, not looking back once.
The guests immediately began murmuring, the social scandal of the decade unfolding right before their eyes.
Fiona collapsed onto the floor, her white dress spreading out across the spilled red wine, absorbing the stain just as mine had.
She was sobbing hysterically, the mascara running down her cheeks in thick black tracks.
Eleanor rushed forward, dropping down beside her golden child, glaring up at me with venomous tears.
"You monster!" Eleanor hissed.
"She is your sister! How could you destroy her future like this?"
"She destroyed her own future the moment she treated cruelty as a game," I answered coldly.
"You taught her that kindness was a weakness, Eleanor."
"You taught her that stomping on me would make her taller."
"Now you can both see how tall you stand when you're lying on the floor."
Christian wrapped his fingers firmly around mine, his touch warm, grounding, and steady.
"We are done here, Mabel," he whispered softly into my ear.
"The air in this room is toxic."
"Wait!" Aidan screamed from his knees, crawling forward another few inches.
"Mabel! My sweet girl! I'm your father! You can't let him do this to us!"
"You have my blood in your veins!"
I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at the pathetic man crawling on the floorboards.
"You gave up the right to call me your daughter twelve years ago," I said, my voice steady as stone.
"Enjoy the rest of the reception, Aidan."
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"You paid for the open bar with my mother's money."
"Drink up."
