Chapter 3 - The Audit of Sins
My father took a shuddering step back, his hand flying to his heart as if he were suffering an immediate coronary event.
"Victoria... please," he whispered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic whine. "We're your parents! You... you wouldn't destroy your own family over a... over a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?" I let out a light, musical laugh that held zero warmth. "Is that what you called it when you locked the front gates seven years ago while it was pouring rain? Is that what you called it when Mother told every family in our social club that I was a drug addict so no one would hire me as a tutor?"
My mother’s face was no longer green with envy; it was pale gray with sheer, unadulterated terror. She looked around the room, desperately searching for a friendly face among the twenty-five wealthy elites sitting at the table.
She found none.
Judge Margaret Vance, the senior federal magistrate sitting three chairs down, was already taking notes on a small leather notepad.
Senator David Ross was staring at my father with absolute disgust, whispering instructions to his chief of staff to cancel every pending meeting with Harrison Logistics.
"Diane," First Lady Eleanor Sterling spoke up, her voice ringing with absolute cold judgment. "I have known you for fifteen years through the Symphony Board. I always knew you were a vain, arrogant woman. But to watch you strike a mother in front of her child—in front of my family—is something I will make sure every charitable foundation in this state knows by tomorrow morning."
"Eleanor, please!" my mother cried out, reaching her trembling hands toward the First Lady. "You don't understand! She insulted us! She was disgraced—"
"Silence!" Governor Sterling roared, his voice booming off the walls, making my mother jump a foot into the air.
The Governor turned his head slightly toward Sergeant Miller.
"Sergeant," the Governor commanded. "Take Mrs. Harrison into custody for aggravated assault and battery. Perform the arrest right here, right now."
"No! No!" my mother shrieked as Sergeant Miller and two uniformed state troopers stepped forward. "You can't arrest me! Do you know who I am?! I am Diane Harrison! Richard, do something!"
My father didn't move a muscle. He stood paralyzed, his eyes wide with horror as the heavy steel handcuffs were pulled from Sergeant Miller’s belt.
"Hands behind your back, ma'am," Sergeant Miller said dryly.
"Get your hands off me! Richard!" my mother screamed as the cold steel clicked around her manicured wrists. Her emerald dress was wrinkled, her styled hair pulled loose, and tears of pure humiliation streamed down her face, ruining her heavy mascara.
Every single camera phone belonging to the high-society guests in the room was pulled out. The quiet, rhythmic click-click-click of digital shutters filled the air as the city's most prominent socialite was handcuffed in the middle of Morrison’s Steakhouse.
As the officers pulled her toward the exit, my mother whirled her head toward me, her face contorted in a desperate, weeping frenzy.
"Victoria! Tell them to stop! I'm your mother! I gave you life!"
I looked at her without a single drop of pity in my heart.
"You gave me life, Diane," I said smoothly, stepping closer so only she and my father could hear my final words. "And seven years ago, you tried to take it away because it didn't fit your social calendar. Today, the bill comes due."
As my mother was dragged out through the double doors, screaming into the crowded main dining room of the restaurant where dozens of wealthy onlookers pulled out their phones to record her shame, my father collapsed into an empty chair, clutching his head in his hands.
"Victoria..." he sobbed, looking up at me with hollow, defeated eyes. "What are you going to do to us?"
I reached into my leather clutch, pulled out a gold-embossed fountain pen, and laid a thick, white envelope on the table directly in front of him.
"Inside that envelope, Dad," I said softly, "is the formal notice of acceleration for Harrison Logistics' twelve-million-dollar credit line. You have precisely forty-eight hours to pay it in full."
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He stared at the envelope as if it were a coiled cobra. "We don't have twelve million dollars! We'll be bankrupt by Friday!"
"Then I suggest you start liquidating the Greenwich mansion," I replied, taking my seat back beside Governor Sterling and gently picking up my daughter's hand. "And Dad? Make sure you pack your things in garbage bags. I hear they hold up quite well in the rain."
