Chapter 4 - The Heiress’s Wrath
Back in the grand ballroom, the veneer of high-class sophistication had completely stripped away.
Isadora sat on a velvet settee, a glass of bourbon trembling in her hand while a team of stylists and private medics fussed over her. Her mother was dabbing at Isadora’s smudged mascara, but Isadora shoved the woman away with a vicious snarl.
"Get away from me!" Isadora shrieked. "Where is Gabriel? Why did he protect that filthy servant?!"
Julian Beaumont stood a few paces away, his phone pressed firmly against his ear. His face was mottled with a furious, crimson rage. "I don't care if the local precinct asks questions," he hissed into the receiver. "Call our private detail at the marina. Bring them here. Elena Vance does not leave this property breathing. Do you hear me? If she talks to the press or the feds, we are all going to federal prison."
He hung up, slamming the sleek smartphone into his pocket so hard the glass screen cracked.
"Daddy!" Isadora cried out, stumbling to her feet, her torn dress dragging behind her. "What is going on? Who is that woman? Gabriel took her hand! In front of everyone, he chose *her* over me!"
Julian turned to his daughter, his eyes cold and venomous. For the first time in her pampered life, Isadora saw genuine terror in her father’s eyes.
"That woman," Julian said in a low, trembling voice, "is the only person who can destroy this family. Eight years ago, she was the lead investigator for the Department of Defense looking into offshore military logistics. She found our books, Isadora. She found the dummy shell corporations, the illegal arms manifests, and the Aldridge shipping routes we hijacked."
Isadora’s breath caught in her throat. "What are you saying? You... you tried to kill her?"
"I thought I *did* kill her!" Julian barked, stepping so close his spit landed on Isadora’s cheek. "She was trapped in the basement of Pier 42 when the charges detonated! We recovered human remains!"
"Dental fragments," Judge Arthur Vance interjected, stepping out from behind a floral pillar. His voice was hollow, his posture broken. "You paid the medical examiner, didn't you, Julian? You brought me those dental fragments so I would close the federal inquiry and sign off on her death certificate."
Julian sneered, dropping all pretenses of civility. "And you signed it gladly, Arthur! Don't play the pious mourner now. You took your three-percent cut of the maritime expansion grant, bought your mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, and wept crocodile tears at her empty casket!"
"I thought she was a traitor!" Arthur yelled, raising his cane in a trembling fist. "You swore to me she sold the codes to foreign buyers!"
"She was a patriot who couldn't be bought," Julian hissed coldly. "Which makes her dangerous. But this house is locked down. Every exit has been sealed. The security cameras are on a closed loop. Whatever Elena Vance came here to find, she’s going to die in the dark, right alongside anyone who tries to help her."
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Isadora stepped back, her stomach churning with an unfamiliar sensation: guilt. She had wanted to humiliate a clumsy maid to assert her dominance over Gabriel. She had wanted to show the world that maids were beneath her heel.
Instead, she had kicked the pin out of a live grenade.
