Chapter 3 - The Expulsion of the Queen
“Pack my bags?” Vanessa shrieked, her face flushing a mottled, furious red as the gathered guests in the hallway strained their necks to listen. “Thomas, are you out of your mind? You’re going to throw your wife out over a hysterical orphan who can’t even carry a dinner tray?”
“You struck a child in my home,” Thomas replied, his voice rising, carrying through the open doors and silencing the elite crowd in the ballroom. “A child we promised to protect and care for after her family was ripped away from her. A child you treated like an indentured servant while my back was turned.”
“She was a burden!” Vanessa yelled, dropping her aristocratic facade completely, revealing the cold, calculating climber beneath. “You brought her into our lives! A constant reminder of some charity case from a middle-class suburb! I ran this household, I managed your social calendar, and I made sure you looked like royalty! You think people care about an orphan? They care about the Whitaker name!”
“The Whitaker name,” Grant intervened coldly, pulling a slim leather portfolio from his breast pocket and tossing it onto the kitchen island, “was built on hard work and integrity, Vanessa—not the shallow vanity you brought into it.”
Grant opened the folder, flipping past financial summaries to reveal a series of printed bank statements and digital logs.
“While you’ve been living high on Whitaker accounts, charging boutique shopping sprees to the corporate subsidiary, I’ve had our internal auditors reviewing household expenditures over the last year,” Grant continued, his eyes locking onto Vanessa’s shifting expression. “Curiously, thousands of dollars in allowance funds designated for Lily’s schooling and clothing allowance were systematically redirected to an offshore boutique account registered under your maiden name.”
Vanessa’s breath hitched. For the first time since the slap, true panic flickered in her eyes.
“You… you were auditing me?” she whispered.
“I audit everything that touches this family,” Grant said smoothly. “And today, I found out you’ve been abusing a sixteen-year-old girl under our roof while falsifying expense reports to cover your tracks. Security is waiting outside the front gates, Vanessa. Your access cards have already been deactivated.”
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Before Vanessa could launch into another tirade, Thomas pointed a steady finger toward the grand double doors. “Get out. If you aren't off this property in twenty minutes, I’ll have the guards throw your luggage over the front fence.”
Humiliated, shaking with impotent fury, Vanessa glared at Lily with pure venom before turning on her high heels and storming past the gaping crowd of investors, her diamond bracelet flashing one last time under the lights.
