Chapter 5 - The Unraveling Begins
For three seconds, absolute silence gripped the penthouse.
Dominic handed the microphone to a stunned waiter, his jaw working silently as he pushed his way through the crowd toward us, his face flushing from pale to an angry, mottled crimson.
"Vivienne?" he hissed, grabbing my arm and yanking me behind a marble pillar away from the guests. "Are you out of your mind? What are you doing here?!"
He looked down at Sophia, who was still clutching her paper necklace with confused brown eyes, and his panic intensified into raw rage. "And why did you bring her? I told you specifically to stay at home tonight!"
I didn't flinch. I slowly pulled my arm from his grip, smoothing the fabric of my coat with deliberate slowness.
"You told me to stay home, Dominic?" I asked softly, my voice carrying a quiet edge that made him step back involuntarily. "Is that because your wife and son were scheduled to take my place tonight?"
Cassandra Vance drifted over, her diamond necklace sparkling under the chandeliers, wearing a look of haughty amusement. "Dominic, darling, who is this... odd little woman? And why is she questioning you?"
Dominic looked trapped between sheer terror and desperate bravado. "Cassandra, honey, just give us a second—"
"No, Dominic, tell her," I interrupted, stepping out from behind the pillar into the full view of the ballroom. "Tell her who I am. Tell her whose apartment we lived in for the first three years of our marriage. Tell her whose father paid off your college debts."
The crowd murmured louder now. Several board members were whispering frantically among themselves.
"You're crazy," Dominic spat, his voice shaking. "You're delusional! Security! Get this woman and her brat out of my building right now!"
Before the security guards stationed near the elevators could even move, every single smartphone in the ballroom simultaneously erupted into a deafening chorus of emergency alert chimes.
Bzzzz-bzzzz! Bzzzz-bzzzz!
Dozens of guests pulled their phones from pockets and evening clutches, looking down at their screens.
Cassandra frowned, pulling out her own device. A second later, the color vanished from her face.
"What... what is this?" she whispered, her eyes widening in horror. "My family’s portfolio... the stock transfer just hit zero. The SEC has frozen all corporate assets."
Dominic’s phone began ringing frantically in his breast pocket. He pulled it out with a trembling hand, staring at the screen where an automated alert from his bank flashed red: CRITICAL ACCOUNT WARNING: ALL CORPORATE CREDIT LINES REVOKED. ASSETS SEIZED UNDER EMERGENCY LIQUIDATION PROTOCOL.
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"No," Dominic breathed, his knees buckling slightly as he clutched the edge of the marble table. "No, that's impossible. We just secured the Meridian account! We have millions in liquidity!"
"You had millions in liquidity, Dominic," I corrected quietly, stepping closer until I was standing right under the blazing chandeliers beside him. "Until my brother decided you were done playing CEO."
