Chapter 3 - THE CASHMERE SNARE“Take Off Her Coat Before I Have You Arrested!”
Sitting in my private VIP suite at Saint Aurelia, surrounded by my grandfather’s legal team, I held my ivory cashmere coat in my lap. My fingers traced the delicate embroidery near the interior heart pocket: L & C.
"Did he really think I was that naive, Grandfather?" I asked softly, watching the digital heart monitors track my tiny babies' stable heartbeats through the glass window connecting my suite to the NICU.
Arthur poured a cup of tea and set it beside me. "Men like Dominic Bennett are blinded by their own arrogance, Audrey. He saw a quiet, gentle woman who loved him and assumed gentleness was weakness. He forgot that a mother protecting her children is the most dangerous creature on earth."
My chief legal counsel, Sarah Sterling, stepped forward with a thick black binder. "Audrey, we examined the coat Natalie was wearing. As you suspected, the micro-RFID chip stitched inside the custom Vance family crest in the collar tracked every location she visited over the last forty-eight hours."
I smiled faintly. "She went into my private home sanctuary, didn't she?"
"She did," Sarah confirmed. "We have high-definition security footage of Natalie and Dominic entering your private residence while you were in emergency labor. They didn't just take the coat. Natalie opened your safe, took your mother's heirloom diamond necklace, and packed three trunks of designer clothes."
"Grand theft, breaking and entering, and felony possession of stolen property," I noted coldly. "Has the arrest warrant been issued?"
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"The police are pulling up to Natalie’s apartment right now," Sarah replied with a professional smile. "And because Dominic authorized her entry into a house that was technically registered under your private family trust, he is being named as a co-conspirator."
Dominic thought he was playing chess while I was helpless in labor. He didn't realize I had already taken his King before the game even started.
