Chapter 4 - The House of Cards
Margaret Ashford, the matriarch of the family, clutched the pearls at her throat so hard her knuckles turned white. As Grandma Eleanor stopped beside me, her sharp blue eyes—the exact same color as the sapphires resting in her brooch—scanned the chapel before locking onto Victoria.
"You struck my granddaughter?" Grandma’s voice was low, but it carried to the very top of the vaulted ceiling.
Victoria couldn't speak. Her lips moved silently, like a fish gasping for air on a dry dock.
"And set fire to clothing she was wearing?" Grandma continued, turning her cold gaze toward Margaret. "Is this how the Ashfords welcome family into the fold?"
Margaret stood up from the front pew, her composure cracking under the immense weight of the catastrophe. "Eleanor, please. This is a family matter. We didn't know—how could we possibly have known that you—that she was your..."
"My sole heir," Grandma finished sharply. "The entire Laurent holdings, the shipping lanes, the European portfolios, and yes, the winter diamond archive. All of it belongs to Emily."
Margaret’s face turned the color of curdled milk. Three years ago, Margaret had formally petitioned the Laurent trust to borrow the famous winter diamond collection for the annual Governors' Ball—a request that Eleanor had rejected with a single, devastating letter calling the Ashford family 'parvenus with more debt than breeding.'
Victoria whipped her head around to stare at her mother, betrayal and panic warring in her dilated pupils. "You knew? You knew about these diamonds? You knew who she was?!"
"I knew the collection existed," Margaret stammered, her hands fluttering uselessly in front of her designer dress. "I knew Eleanor Laurent had a granddaughter who lived privately, but the trusts—they were locked! The name on the registry was Vance-Laurent! I didn't connect—"
"You didn't care to connect," I said, my voice ringing out clearly across the nave. I stepped closer to Victoria, who shrank back against the wall like a cornered animal. "Because for eighteen months, you didn't see a person. You saw a target. You saw an ordinary girl you could bully, insult, and humiliate to feed your own pathetic sense of superiority."
Victoria’s face twisted into an ugly, desperate snarl. "You manipulated Daniel! You hid who you were just to trap him! You're a liar! A gold-digger!"
"Enough."
Daniel’s voice was like a gunshot. He pushed past his mother, his face dark with a fury I had never seen directed at his sister before. He looked at Victoria, then down at the scorched silk, and finally at me.
"Leave," Daniel said, pointing a steady finger toward the chapel doors.
Victoria stared at him, her eyes wide with total disbelief. "You're choosing her? Over your own sister? Over your family?!"
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Daniel looked straight into her eyes. "I chose her the day I asked her to marry me. The fact that she has a famous name doesn't change anything—except it finally opens my eyes to what kind of monsters my family really are."
Without another word, Victoria turned and bolted down the aisle, her heels clacking frantically against the stone until the heavy doors slammed shut behind her.
