Chapter 2 - The Number on Speed Dial
The click of the disconnected call sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
I lowered the phone from my ear, keeping my posture rigid. My knuckles were pale where I clutched the torn edges of my gown over my chest, but I refused to let my shoulders slump. When you yield your posture to people who despise you, you hand them the weapon they need to finish you.
"Is that it?" Chloe sneered, stepping closer, her expensive diamond tennis bracelet clicking against the gold bangles on her wrist. "A two-second phone call? What did your father say, Vivienne? Did he tell you he couldn't afford the train fare into the city?"
A few of the bridesmaids laughed—a chorus of rehearsed, sycophantic giggles designed to soothe the bride's frayed nerves.
"Chloe, sweetheart, let the police handle it," Eleanor said, though she too was smirking, surveying my disheveled state with venomous satisfaction. "Though I doubt anyone in her family even has a driver's license, let alone an attorney on retainer. It’s pathetic, really. We brought her into our home. We invited her to our events. We allowed Dominic to make his little mistake, hoping she would at least learn how civilized people behave. And this is how she repays us. By plundering my daughter's wedding gift."
Dominic stepped closer to me then. For half a heartbeat, a foolish, lingering ember of hope flickered in my chest. I thought—absurdly—that he was going to take off his tuxedo jacket. I thought he was going to drape it over my bare, exposed shoulders to shield me from the stares of two hundred people.
Instead, he leaned in, his breath smelling of expensive scotch and cowardice, and grabbed my wrist.
His grip was tight, desperate. "Vivienne, stop this right now," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Who did you just call? What are you trying to pull?"
I looked down at his hand on my wrist, then up into his handsome, empty face. "Let go of me, Dominic."
"You're making a spectacle out of Chloe's wedding!" he whispered furiously, his eyes darting to the guests who were pretending not to watch us. "Do you have any idea who is in this room? The Deputy Mayor is at table four. Julian Sterling, the head of Sterling Capital, is standing right by the bar. If this gets into the society papers, the Montgomery name is ruined! Just admit you mislaid the ring, apologize to Chloe, and we'll go home. We can sort out your... your delusions in private."
"Admit I mislaid it?" I echoed, my voice chillingly clear. "She accused me of *stealing* it, Dominic. Your mother just ripped my dress down to my undergarments. In front of your colleagues. In front of your friends."
"Because you were being stubborn!" Dominic snapped, his mask slipping entirely. "If you had just opened your purse like a normal person instead of acting like you're above everyone else, none of this would have happened! You always do this, Vivienne. You act like you're some tragic princess who's too pure for money, but the moment things get difficult, you throw a tantrum. Just look at you. You look like a lunatic."
I looked at him—really looked at him.
I remembered meeting him four years ago in a small coffee shop near the public library where I was volunteering. He had dropped his files; I had helped him pick them up. He had seemed charming, humble, hungry to make something of himself outside the shadow of his overbearing mother. When he proposed a year later, I had deliberately hidden my family’s wealth. I told him my father was retired, living quietly in the country. I wanted to be loved for the way I laughed, for the way I read books, for the way I held his hand when he was anxious about quarterly earnings.
I had been an idiot.
Dominic Montgomery hadn't loved me for my simplicity. He had tolerated me because he thought I was pliable. He thought a woman with no family money, no powerful brothers, and no social leverage would be forever grateful for the scraps falling from the Montgomery table. He thought I would be a perpetual, silent hostage in their parlor games.
"Take your hand off me," I said again, my voice dropping to a register he had never heard before. It wasn't the voice of the accommodating wife who smoothed down his ties before dinner parties. It was the voice of Arthur Vance’s only daughter.
Dominic recoiled slightly, startled by the flat, arctic deadness in my eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, his fingers loosened.
"You're going to regret this," he muttered, stepping back toward his mother. "When the police get here, I am not stepping in to help you."
"You haven't stepped in once in three years, Dominic," I replied. "Why would you start now?"
Across the room, Eleanor had crossed over to Julian Sterling, the gray-haired, immaculately dressed financier who was widely regarded as the most influential private equity manager on the East Coast. Eleanor had spent six months securing his attendance at this wedding, hoping to broker an eight-figure capital injection for Montgomery Logistics.
"Julian, darling," Eleanor purred, her hands fluttering against her collarbones with exaggerated fragility. "I must apologize for this appalling disruption. My son’s wife... well, you know how these modern marriages are. One tries to be charitable, but blood will tell. We are handling it. The police will have her removed through the service entrance shortly."
Julian Sterling did not look at Eleanor. He was staring directly across the ballroom, his piercing gray eyes locked onto the black card I was holding casually between two fingers against my side.
His expression was not one of disgust. It was one of pure, petrified bewilderment.
"Eleanor," Julian said, his voice flat and remarkably devoid of the warmth she expected. "Where did your daughter-in-law get that card?"
Eleanor blinked, thrown off script. "What? That black plastic thing? Probably a promotional coupon from a discount store. The girl hoards rubbish."
"That is not plastic," Julian murmured, taking a slow step toward me, his brow furrowed. "And that is not a promotional coupon."
Before Eleanor could demand an explanation, the heavy brass doors of the ballroom rattled.
It was not the frantic knocking of hotel staff, nor was it the polite entry of standard guests. It was a single, authoritative thump that resonated through the thick timber of the double doors.
Chloe adjusted her veil, turning toward the sound with a vindictive grin. "Finally! The police are here. Officer, she's right over here! Don't let her hide behind her pregnancy!"
The doors swung inward.
It was not the local precinct officers in their navy-blue municipal uniforms.
Four men stepped through the entryway. They wore slate-gray suits cut from heavyweight wool, charcoal ties, and micro-earpieces coiled neatly behind their ears. They moved not like security guards, but like an advance team trained to clear an embassy during a coup d'état. Their eyes swept the perimeter in synchronized arcs, cataloging the exits, the crowd, and the chandeliers within four seconds.
Behind them came a woman in a sharply tailored charcoal pantsuit, carrying an aluminum briefcase. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her horn-rimmed glasses reflected the chandelier light like mirrors.
I knew her instantly.
Claire Fontaine. Senior partner at Fontaine, Vance & Croft, and the personal legal executioner of Arthur Vance for twenty-five years.
The guests parted instinctively, shrinking back against the banquet tables as the four men formed a clear, impenetrable corridor straight down the center of the dance floor.
Chloe’s triumphant smile faltered, her painted eyebrows pulling together. "Who... who are you people? Did my father hire private security?"
Claire Fontaine walked straight past Chloe, her heels striking the marble with rhythmic, metronomic precision. She did not spare a glance for Eleanor, nor did she acknowledge Dominic, who had stepped forward with a puffed-out chest to demand an explanation.
Claire stopped three feet in front of me.
She took one look at my torn silk gown, the exposed skin of my belly, and the scattered prenatal vitamins crushed beneath Eleanor’s expensive heels. A flicker of icy, unadulterated fury passed across the lawyer’s stoic features before she bowed her head with deep, unmistakable reverence.
"Miss Vance," Claire said, her voice ringing clear and crisp throughout the vaulted ballroom. "Your father instructed us to secure your person immediately. Medical transport is waiting downstairs, and the building is now under sovereign maritime and commercial lockdown."
The entire room seemed to tilt on its axis.
Dominic took a half-step forward, his mouth hanging open. "*Miss Vance?*" he croaked. "Her name is Montgomery! She’s my wife! Who the hell are you?"
Claire Fontaine turned her head slowly, regarding Dominic as if he were an oily smear on an otherwise clean window.
May you like
"Mr. Montgomery," Claire said, her tone dripping with venomous disdain. "As of four minutes ago, you are no longer anyone of consequence. Step away from Arthur Vance’s daughter before my security detail removes you by force."
***
