Chapter 4 - The Slap RecordedThe ballroom erupted into absolute chaos.
Shouts of shock, whispers of scandal, and the frantic clicking of camera shutters filled the air. Several prominent business associates of my father immediately stood up from their tables, grabbing their coats and heading for the exits, realizing that associating with Richard now meant financial suicide.
"It’s a forgery!" Sarah suddenly shrieked, her voice cracking into a hysterical pitch as she lunged forward, clawing the air. "She manipulated you, Arthur! That ungrateful, cold-hearted bitch tricked you! She staged this whole thing because she couldn't stand her sister being happy!"
Sarah turned her fury on me, charging across the polished floor with her nails bared like a cornered animal. "I should have slapped you harder, you wicked little—"
Flash.
A dozen professional camera flashes went off simultaneously as the wedding videographer captured every second of her unhinged outburst.
Before Sarah could reach me, Arthur’s junior partners stepped forward, blocking her path with cold, professional precision. But they didn't need to do anything else, because a second screen on the wall flickered to life.
"Would anyone care for a replay?" one of the junior partners asked politely, tapping a remote.
The big screen zoomed in on the exact moment, an hour earlier, when Sarah had crossed the dance floor, hissed her threats, and struck my face so hard my diamond earring flew off. The audio system of the ballroom—still hooked into the DJ’s high-gain microphone—projected the sickening crack of the slap across the room, followed crystal-clear by my mother’s voice: 'We paid for your education. We made you. Hand over the keys.'
The entire room went dead silent. The evidence of unprovoked physical assault, combined with extortion in front of two hundred witnesses, played in slow motion for all to see.
Mason stared at Sarah in sheer horror. The golden-boy groom, who had spent the last hour bragging to wealthy tables about moving into my multi-million-dollar penthouse, suddenly realized he had married into a penniless, disgraced family of frauds.
May you like
"You... you didn't tell me your family were bankrupt criminals," Mason hissed, dropping Chloe’s hand as if she carried a plague.
Chloe let out a piercing scream of absolute betrayal, turning on her mother with feral rage. "You ruined my life! You couldn't just wait one day? You had to steal her penthouse so badly that you blew up our entire future?!"
