Chapter 3 - The Rats Abandon the Ship
The ballroom devolved into absolute chaos.
Reporters were shouting questions, their microphones shoved toward the stage. Board members were furiously pulling out their phones, calling their own legal teams to distance themselves from the blast radius of Grant’s crimes.
Savannah looked at the screen, then at Grant, and finally at Eleanor. The romantic, billionaire fantasy she had been sold completely imploded. She realized, in real-time, that the man she had allowed to ruin a marriage was not a titan of industry. He was a broke, fraudulent con artist who had just implicated her in a multi-million-dollar federal embezzlement scheme.
"You told me it was your money!" Savannah screamed, her voice cracking as she ripped the stolen Cartier bracelet off her wrist and threw it violently at Grant’s chest. The heavy diamonds hit him and clattered onto the polished marble floor. "You said you were going to divorce her and give me everything!"
"Savannah, shut up!" Grant panicked, trying to grab her hand. "Don't say anything in front of these people!"
"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, backing away from him as if he were radioactive. She looked around the room, realizing that she was surrounded by people who wielded enough power to crush her into dust. "I didn't know! I swear to God, I didn't know the money was stolen!"
She hiked up the skirt of her ivory dress and tried to run toward the grand double doors of the ballroom.
"Stop her!" Eleanor yelled, entirely losing her mind. "She’s carrying my grandchild, she’s part of this!"
"Let her go, Eleanor," I said coldly. "Savannah’s signature is on the fraudulent mortgage documents. The IRS knows exactly where to find her."
Grant fell to his knees in the center of the ballroom. The arrogant, composed man who had tightened his grip on my arm and told me not to make things ugly was now sobbing hysterically on the floor, surrounded by the flashing cameras of the very press he had hoped would document my downfall.
"Vivian, please," Grant begged, looking up at me with hollow, terrified eyes. "I’m sick. I have an addiction. I need help. You can't send me to prison, I’m the father of her child!"
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"You are a parasite," I whispered, stepping forward so that I was looking down at him. "You used my grief over losing my own babies to mask your theft. You thought my silence was weakness. You thought I was too broken to fight back. But I am my father’s daughter. And I protect what is mine."
I turned my back on him. The crowd parted for me like the Red Sea. I walked over to the Cartier bracelet resting on the floor, picked it up, and clasped it firmly around my own wrist. It felt heavy, cold, and absolutely perfect.
