Chapter 8 - The Breakfast of Wolves
The heavy swinging doors crashed back against the mahogany walls with a sound like a gunshot.
The four people at the table froze in mid-motion.
Arthur Sterling’s Montblanc pen remained suspended half an inch above the signature line.
Evelyn Vale’s butter knife dropped onto her china plate with a sharp, ringing clang.
Julianna Vance gasped, her hand flying to her throat as she recoiled against the back of her leather armchair.
I walked out of the pantry shadow into the bright morning light of the salon, my lace skirt dragging across the Persian rug.
My hem was black with grease, my veil hung in shreds across my left shoulder, and my face was bare, pale, and cold as a headstone.
Graham’s eyes locked onto mine, and every drop of color drained from his face until his skin looked like wet chalk.
The gold pen slipped from his fingers, rolling across the linen tablecloth and leaving a trail of blue ink across the five-million-dollar trust document.
“June?” he whispered, his vocal cords constricting until his voice cracked like dry kindling.
“Good morning, Graham,” I said, walking slowly toward the foot of the table.
“I wanted to check on your mother’s emergency stent.”
“She looks remarkably well for a woman who was in cardiac arrest five hours ago.”
Evelyn Vale shrank back into her chair, her face turning a mottled, purplish red as she grabbed her designer purse and pressed it against her chest like a breastplate.
Julianna looked between me and Graham, her hazel eyes wide with absolute bewilderment.
“Graham... who is this?” Julianna asked, her voice trembling.
“Why is this woman wearing a wedding dress in our dining salon?”
Graham scrambled to his feet, knocking his chair backward against the sideboard.
He tried to summon that smooth, authoritative corporate mask, but his hands were twitching violently at his sides.
“Security!” Graham barked toward the main entrance, his voice rising into a panicked shriek.
“Where the hell is security? Get this lunatic out of here!”
The double entrance doors swung open, but it wasn't the hotel guards who stepped into the room.
Marcus Vance walked through the archway, closing the heavy doors behind him and standing with his back against them, his arms crossed over his chest.
His expression was unreadable, cold, and utterly immovable.
“Sit down, Graham,” Vance said softly.
The command was delivered without raising his voice, but the sheer weight of it made the air in the room contract.
“Dad?” Julianna cried, rising from her chair.
“What is going on? Who is she?”
“She is your husband’s other bride, Julianna,” Marcus Vance said, his gray eyes fixing on Graham’s sweating forehead.
“And she has an invoice that needs to be settled before you sign that disbursement.”
I stopped at the edge of the mahogany table, directly across from Arthur Sterling.
I reached into the deep pocket of my bridal skirt, pulled out the heavy shears, and laid them flat on the white linen tablecloth.
Then I reached inside my bodice, pulled out the white legal folder I had taken from my mother’s safe at midnight, and dropped it onto the five-million-dollar contract.
“What is the meaning of this?” Arthur Sterling demanded, peering over his spectacles at the folder.
“The meaning, Mr. Sterling, is that the commercial real estate listed on line six of your collateral schedule does not belong to Vale Logistics,” I said clearly.
“It belongs to Bellamy Blooms, a business established by my mother in 1989.”
“And the quitclaim deed Graham submitted to your office this morning was obtained through felony fraud and interstate bank forgery.”
“That’s a lie!” Graham shouted, his voice cracking as sweat began to pour down the sides of his temples.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend! She’s an emotionally unstable florist from Southie who couldn't accept that our relationship ended six months ago!”
“She broke into my office! She stole those files!”
He turned toward Julianna, his face twisted into a desperate, pleading mask of sincerity.
“Julianna, look at me. You know me.”
“I cut ties with this woman completely when I met you.”
“She’s trying to extort us because she knows your family has money!”
“Is that why you gave her this ring?” Marcus Vance’s voice cut through the room like a scalpel.
Vance reached into his vest pocket, pulled out the ninety-five-dollar cubic zirconia ring, and tossed it across the table.
The cheap silver-plated band bounced off Graham’s crystal water goblet and landed squarely in front of Julianna.
Julianna looked down at the ring, then down at the six-carat diamond sparkling on her own left hand.
“What... what is this?” she whispered, her hands beginning to shake.
“That was my grandmother’s wedding ring, Julianna,” I told her, my voice low and steady.
May you like
“Or at least, that’s what Graham told me when he put it on my finger yesterday at two o'clock in the bridal suite of Ballroom C downstairs.”
“Twenty minutes before he took the service elevator up to marry you.”
