Chapter 5: The Aftermath at the Ballroom
Back inside the grand ballroom, the glittering lights of the crystal chandeliers felt less like a celebration and more like the illumination of a crime scene.
The two hundred guests had mostly filtered out, murmuring in hushed tones as they fled the toxic atmosphere. Only a handful of close relatives remained—mostly members of the Davis family who were too paralyzed by shock to move.
Chloe was still sitting on the marble floor, her bridal veil trailing in a puddle of melted raspberry sorbet and champagne. Her mother, Eleanor, was pacing back and forth near the head table, her face twisted in a mask of hysterical panic as she jabbed furiously at her smartphone screen.
"Pick up! Pick up the phone, Richard!" Eleanor shrieked into the receiver, her voice cracking. "Your accounts are frozen! Vance Global just pulled the commercial lease! We're locked out of the corporate office!"
A muffled, panicked voice sputtered from the phone speaker, but before Richard Davis could fully explain the scale of the financial disaster hitting their family business, the call dropped.
Dominic stood a few feet away, staring blankly at the spot where I had stood moments before. His tie was slightly crooked, his tuxedo jacket wrinkled from where he had slumped against the pillar.
"Dominic!" Eleanor spun around, her eyes blazing with irrational fury. She marched over to him and slammed her palm against his chest. "This is your fault! Why didn't you control your wife? Why didn't you make her back down?!"
Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't yell back. He just looked at his mother with hollow, unblinking eyes.
"Control her?" Dominic whispered, his voice sounding entirely detached from reality. "Mom... did you hear what Arthur Vance called her?"
"She paid those actors! It was a trick! Some kind of elaborate setup!" Eleanor insisted, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her own disbelief. "No regular woman walks around hiding a billion-dollar family like that!"
"She wasn't hiding it," Dominic said slowly, the terrible weight of his stupidity finally crushing down on him. "We just never asked. We never cared. We took one look at her simple clothes, her quiet demeanor, and her lack of social connections, and we decided she was beneath us."
He let out a dry, humorless laugh that bordered on manic.
"Do you know what she drove to our apartment when we first met, Mom? A ten-year-old sedan with a rusted bumper. Do you know what she wore on our first anniversary? A fifty-dollar dress from a department store sale. I thought she was poor. I thought I was doing her a favor by marrying her and teaching her how to live in our world."
Chloe looked up from the floor, her eyes bloodshot and furious. "So what if she's rich?! We can sue her! We can sue the company for defamation, for harassment, for—"
"With what money, Chloe?" Dominic interrupted coldly, looking down at his sister with utter disdain. "Your husband-to-be packed his bags and left through the kitchen ten minutes after Amanda got arrested. Your father’s bank accounts are frozen. The wedding venue is billing us four hundred thousand dollars for damages, security, and emergency cleanup because your cousin decided to steal a million-dollar ring to frame my pregnant wife."
Chloe opened her mouth, but no sound came out. The harsh reality of their ruin settled over the room like lead.
Just then, the heavy mahogany doors swung open once more.
Two men in sharp gray suits walked into the ballroom. They didn't look like hotel staff, and they certainly didn't look like wedding guests. They walked with the quiet, authoritative precision of federal investigators.
One of them flashed a badge toward Eleanor and Richard Davis’s empty seats, then looked directly at Dominic.
"Mr. Dominic Sterling?" the agent asked, his voice crisp and professional.
Dominic swallowed hard. "Yes?"
"I am Agent Vance from the federal financial crimes division," the agent said, uttering a last name that now made Dominic’s stomach violently heave. "We have a warrant to examine all personal and corporate financial records associated with your name, as well as any joint accounts shared with your spouse."
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Agent Vance paused, offering a tight, humorless smile.
"It appears your wife’s family isn't the only one with powerful connections. Only in your case, Mr. Sterling, the investigation goes all the way to the top."
