Pandemonium broke loose.
The quiet, horrified tension that had gripped the room shattered into absolute chaos. Guests rose from their tables in waves. Silverware clattered against fine china. Several older women were crying; men in five-thousand-dollar suits were loudly demanding their coats from the check-in staff.
“Daniel! You cannot do this!” Richard Sterling bellowed, rushing toward Daniel, his hand raised as if to physically strike the younger man. “Do you have any concept of the financial liability you are incurring? The deposits alone on this venue are non-refundable! The contracts—”
Arthur Vance stepped between Richard and Daniel.
Arthur was three inches shorter than the hedge-fund titan, and his suit was cheap polyester, but thirty years of lifting transmission blocks and working forty-hour shifts in freezing post office garages had given him shoulders like railroad ties.
Arthur caught Richard by the wrist. He didn’t strike him. He simply squeezed.
Richard’s face drained of color. He let out a sharp gasp of pain, his knees buckling slightly under the pressure Arthur applied to the tendons in his forearm.
“Listen to me, Dick,” Arthur said, his face inches from Richard’s nose. “You touch my son, and the next call I make isn’t to the county clerk. It’s to the United States Postal Inspection Service. Because that fraudulent lien you filed against my home? You sent the foreclosure notice through the United States Mail.”
Richard’s eyes widened with genuine, bone-chilling panic.
“Mail fraud,” Arthur whispered softly, his voice a razor blade. “Federal felony. Mandatory five-year minimum. No country-club prison. No early parole. Do you think your board of directors will keep you on as chairman when the feds kick your front door off its hinges on Monday morning?”
Arthur released Richard’s wrist. Richard stumbled backward, clutching his arm against his chest, panting heavily.
“Get your daughter,” Arthur said. “Get your wife. And get out of this room before I decide to show the microphone to the three reporters Claire invited to cover your ‘society wedding of the season.'”
Claire was on her knees by the head table now, clutching the hem of her ruined gown, sobbing hysterically. Her mother, Victoria Sterling, finally moved—not to comfort her daughter, but to grab her own diamond-studded clutch and whisper furiously into Claire’s ear.
“Get up, Claire,” Victoria hissed, loud enough for Daniel to hear. “Get up! You’re making a spectacle of yourself! We are leaving through the service elevator!”
“No! Daniel!” Claire screamed, crawling forward across the floor, her hands smearing against the marble. “Daniel, look at me! You promised! You promised for better or for worse!”
Daniel didn’t look back.
He turned his back on the bride, on the three-hundred-thousand-dollar spectacle, on the city life he had chased for five years. He walked over to his mother.
Eleanor was trembling so violently she could barely stand. Her bare feet were leaving small, dark smears of blood on the pristine carpet.
Daniel knelt down before her. He took off his bespoke Tom Ford tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. It swamped her small frame, smelling of his cologne and the crisp autumn air.
Then, he bent down, scooped her up into his arms, and lifted her against his chest just as he had done when he was a teenager carrying her to safety during the flood of Willow Creek.
“I’ve got you, Mom,” Daniel whispered, tears streaming down his face, washing paths through the dust and stress of the day. “I’ve got you. Let’s go home.”