Chapter 3 - THE BETRAYAL AT THE ALTAR (PART 4)
Before Marcus’s security guards could react, a sudden gunshot echoed from the upper balcony!
BANG!
The glass chandelier above the room shattered, dropping thousands of crystal shards down onto the marble floor. Women screamed, men ducked for cover, and in the chaos, Lily sprinted across the room with the agility of a child raised on the streets.
On the upper balcony stood a woman in an elegant red silk dress, holding a silver pistol.
It was Victoria Vance—Marcus’s wife, and Leo’s mother.
“Victoria!” Marcus yelled, shielding his face from the falling glass. “What are you doing? Get the guards!”
Victoria didn’t look at Marcus. Her cold, piercing eyes were fixed entirely on Elena.
“You shouldn’t have come back, Elena,” Victoria said calmly, lowering the gun just enough to point it directly at Elena’s heart. “You were supposed to stay dead. We paid the arsonists two million dollars to make sure your body was never found.”
The room went dead silent again. The live stream comments went wild:
“THE WIFE WAS IN ON IT?!”
“SHE JUST CONFESSED ON LIVE TV!”
“THE ENTIRE FAMILY IS EVIL!”
Marcus glared up at his wife in pure horror. “Victoria, shut your mouth! The cameras are live!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Marcus,” Victoria said with a venomous sneer. “Do you really think I care about your public image? The FBI is already surrounding the estate. Look out the windows!”
Red and blue police lights began flashing through the high windows of the grand ballroom. The wail of sirens echoed from the long driveway leading up to the mansion.
Victoria looked down at her son, Leo, who was crying hysterically on the floor. “I did what I had to do to give my son everything. I threw you in the fire six years ago, Elena, and if I have to put a bullet through you today to protect my life, I will do it without blinking.”
Elena didn’t flinch. She looked up at Victoria with deep pity. “You think you did this for Leo? Look at him, Victoria. You raised a bully. A boy who laughs at poor children because he thinks money makes him a god. You didn’t give him everything—you gave him a curse.”
Lily reached the master audio desk at the edge of the ballroom. Her tiny hands worked fast. She pushed the micro-SD card into the slot and hit PLAY.
A heavy, static-filled audio recording suddenly echoed from the massive surround-sound speakers built into the walls of the mansion.
“If you don’t sign over the Thorne estate, Arthur, you won’t live to see the sunrise,” Marcus’s recorded voice boomed through the room, clear and terrifyingly real.
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“You can kill me, Marcus…” replied a frail, dying voice—Elena’s father. “…but my daughter knows the truth. The real heir will come back for what is hers.”
“She won’t,” Marcus’s voice answered on the recording. “Because Victoria is burning her house down as we speak.”
