Chapter 5 - The Call for the Master
“Don't you threaten me!” Victoria sneered, her voice trembling with an intoxicating mix of rage and entitlement. “You have spent your whole miserable life acting like you’re above everything. Above our family’s standards. Above our traditions. You think because you read books and work in an office that you’re smarter than us? You’re nothing, Maya! You are an irrelevance!”
Eleanor nodded along, her chin held high, though the uneasy shift in Richard’s posture was beginning to give her pause. “Maya, if you had any decency left in your soul, you would turn around and walk out those doors before you destroy Richard’s standing in this community. Do you have any idea how hard Victoria worked to secure our table at the Chairman’s circle?”
“She didn’t work at all,” I replied calmly. “Richard’s father paid for the table. And from what I understand, he had to take out a high-interest mezzanine line of credit to clear the pledge.”
Richard went completely white. He dropped his arm from Victoria’s grip as if he had been burned. “Maya... please. Don’t.”
“What is she talking about?” Victoria barked, glaring at her husband. “Richard, what is she talking about? Mezzanine line? Don’t listen to her, she’s making things up to deflect from her own humiliation!”
Before Richard could formulate a lie to comfort his wife, Campbell tapped his earpiece. “Control, this is Campbell at Main Registration. Send Mr. Vance out immediately. Yes. Main entrance. We have a priority protocol in progress.”
Victoria smiled triumphantly. She smoothed her gown once more, turning her back on me as though the matter had already been decided in her favor. “Finally. A man who understands accountability. When Julian Vance gets out here, Maya, you’d better pray he doesn't have the police arrest you for trespassing. The St. Clair Estate doesn’t tolerate lower-class impostors.”
The St. Clair Estate.
Built in 1894 by an industrialist, it spanned over two hundred acres of manicured bluffs overlooking the Atlantic. It had served as a private playground for America’s old-money dynasties for over a century: Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Carnegies. But old money eventually rots from the inside out when generations of heirs do nothing but spend what they didn't earn.
By the winter of last year, the Preservation Trust running the estate was thirty million dollars in debt, drowning under deferred maintenance, property taxes, and catastrophic mismanagement. The entire property had been quietly placed on the auction block behind closed doors, hidden from the public to prevent a panic among its blue-blood membership.
Everyone in high society knew an anonymous private equity firm had stepped in at the eleventh hour, buying out the debt, paying off the liens, and preserving the club under a newly restructured family foundation.
Victoria assumed it was Arthur Sterling, the ninety-year-old steel magnate whose family had summered here since 1920. Everyone assumed it was Sterling.
They were about to learn how costly assumptions could be.
The heavy, brass-inlaid double doors leading to the private executive offices clicked open. Fast, purposeful footsteps tapped across the herringbone parquet floor. Julian Vance, the General Manager of the St. Clair Estate for the past fifteen years, hurried into the foyer.
He was sixty, elegant, with silver-rimmed spectacles and a demeanor that usually projected unshakeable European hospitality. But tonight, sweat glistened at his temples. His tie was adjusted three times in the span of ten paces. He held a leather-bound administrative portfolio tightly under his arm.
“Mr. Vance!” Victoria called out, stepping directly into his path with an outstretched hand and an exaggerated, patronizing smile. “Thank heavens you’re here. I apologize for the commotion, but security seems completely paralyzed. We have an unauthorized intruder who needs to be removed before the VIP reception begins.”
Julian Vance didn’t stop.
He didn’t even take her outstretched hand. In fact, he swerved around her with such haste that the sleeve of his dinner jacket brushed against hers, nearly throwing her off balance in her four-inch Louboutin heels.
“Out of the way, please,” Vance murmured, his voice breathless, not even looking at her face.
Victoria blinked, stunned. “Mr. Vance? It’s Victoria Holloway! Richard Holloway’s wife!”
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Vance didn’t care. He wasn’t looking at Victoria. He wasn’t looking at Eleanor, who was already preparing an offended speech about customer service. He wasn’t looking at Richard, who was slowly backing away toward the edge of the carpet.
Julian Vance walked straight up to me.
