Chapter 9 - The Collapse
The reality of her ruined life crashed into Sutton like a freight train.
She dropped her bouquet into the dirt and lunged across the grass toward me, her manicured nails extended like claws. "You ruined my life! You crippled bitch! You ruined everything I worked for!"
Before she could get within five feet of my wheelchair, the two female officers who had been waiting beside the terrace stepped smoothly into her path.
With swift, trained efficiency, one officer grabbed Sutton’s wrists, while the other swept her feet out from beneath her massive ballgown.
Sutton slammed down face-first onto the red carpet, her sixty-thousand-dollar dress tearing cleanly along the back seam, exposing the corset laces beneath.
*Click. Click.*
The cold steel of handcuffs snapped tightly around her wrists behind her back.
"Sutton Sterling," Detective Miller announced, reading from a laminated card. "You are under arrest for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, felony battery causing great bodily injury, and commercial identity theft."
"Dad! Mom! Help me!" Sutton shrieked, thrashing against the grass, dirt smearing across her bridal makeup, her diamond tiara knocked askew into the mulch. "Get them off me! Dad!"
Stellin tried to surge forward, but Detective Miller blocked his path, producing a second set of documents.
"Stellin Sterling," Miller said loudly. "You are also under arrest for grand larceny, forgery, and enterprise fraud in connection with the fraudulent authorization of commercial corporate assets."
"I’m her father!" Stellin bellowed, his face veins bulging with fury. "It was an internal family arrangement! You can't arrest me for managing my daughter's finances!"
"Your daughter is thirty-four years old, and you are not an authorized officer of Apex Precision Assessments," Vesper interjected smoothly, handing a signed corporate resolution to the secondary officer. "He forged her signature on the master billing ledger at 4:15 PM yesterday afternoon. We have the hotel’s lobby camera recording him practicing her signature on a cocktail napkin before handing it to the front desk clerk."
Stellin went pale as a ghost. His arms dropped limp to his sides as the second officer spun him around and cuffed him in front of the entire assembly of two hundred elite peers he had spent decades trying to impress.
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Guests were filming everything on their phones. The very lifestyle magazine photographers Eleanor had hired were snapping rapid-fire photos of the weeping bride pinned to the grass in handcuffs and the father being led away in shame.
Eleanor sank to her knees on the aisle, sobbing hysterically into her hands, completely abandoned by her high-society acquaintances, who were already rushing toward the valet stands to escape the scandal.
