Chapter 7 - The Screen Speaks
A low, confused murmur swept through the room.
"What is that?" someone at Table 4 whispered. "Is that an invoice?"
Eleanor froze. Her smile remained pinned to her face, but her eyes dilated into wide, black pools of terror. She turned her head sharply toward the AV tech in the back booth, making a frantic cutting gesture across her throat.
The tech didn't move. Marcus had paid him five hundred dollars cash twenty minutes earlier to lock the control booth door from the inside.
The slide transitioned.
The second image appeared on the forty-foot screens.
It was the ultrasound scan from St. Jude’s Clinic.
There was no mistaking it. Sloane Vance's full legal name was printed clearly across the digital header, alongside the gestational timestamp: *14 Weeks, 2 Days.*
Beneath the image was an embedded email chain, magnified for the entire room to read.
*From: Eleanor Vance*
*To: Sloane Vance*
*Date: November 3*
*Subject: Burlington arrangements*
*"I'll handle the remaining expenses. Don't use the wedding account again. Your father has started asking questions about those transfers. And please make sure Reid doesn't say anything to Brooke before Saturday."*
The room went completely, terrifyingly silent. You could hear the faint hum of the air conditioning vents overhead.
Reid’s champagne flute slipped from his fingers. It shattered against the parquet floor, sending a spray of crystal and golden liquid splashing across his polished leather shoes.
"Turn it off," Eleanor croaked, her voice trembling as she stood up so fast her chair screeched backward. "Turn that off right now! Technical error! Somebody turn off the projector!"
Nobody moved.
I stood up. I picked up the wireless microphone that had been set beside my plate for the bride's toast.
"It’s not a technical error, Mom," I said into the mic. My voice echoed through the speakers, crystal-clear, steady, and loud enough to pierce every corner of the ballroom.
Arthur was staring at the screen. His mouth was slightly open. His gaze moved from the words *Sloane Vance* to the words *Reid Montgomery*, his face shifting from confusion to an awful, gray realization.
"Brooke, stop this!" Reid lunged across the corner of the table, his eyes wild with terror. "Brooke, for God's sake, stop!"
"Sit down, Reid," Marcus’s voice cut through the room like a whip. Marcus stood between Reid and me, his six-foot-two frame blocking Reid effortlessly. "Touch her and I’ll have the two off-duty officers at the door cuff you before you clear the foyer."
"What is the meaning of this?" Richard Montgomery roared, slamming both fists onto the table. "Eleanor! Arthur! What the hell is being displayed up there?"
"What's being displayed, Richard," I said, looking directly at Reid’s father, "is the reason your son has been so eager to push this wedding through before the end of the fiscal quarter."
I clicked the remote in my palm.
The third slide appeared.
An audio player interface. A single tap of my thumb, and Sloane’s voice filled the ballroom, loud and sobbing, recorded directly from her loft twenty-four hours earlier:
*"He came to my apartment to fix the leak under the sink while you were in Denver... July... He loved me! He told me he was going to break off the engagement before August! He said he was trapped because of Dad's business! He didn't want to hurt you, but he couldn't leave... When the test was positive, I panicked. I called Mom. Mom told Reid he had to marry you to keep the peace, and she would take care of me with the wedding account..."*
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Sloane buried her face in her napkins, letting out a ragged, howling wail that echoed against the chandeliers.
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