Chapter 2 - Unravelling the Accounts
I gestured to Daniel, who stepped down from the platform and handed me a thin red leather binder.
"My family believed I was weak because I chose not to fight over dinner tables, luxury cars, or country club memberships," I said, addressing the silent, paralyzed audience. "They mistook my silence for ignorance. They assumed that because I lived in a modest apartment and wore the same clothes, I didn't understand how money worked."
I opened the red binder.
"Over the past three years, my father, Arthur Ashford, and my mother, Beatrice Ashford, have engaged in systematic corporate embezzlement from Ashford Holdings to finance a lifestyle they could not afford."
My mother gasped, clutching her heavy pearl necklace. "Clara! How dare you slander your own parents in front of our friends!"
"It’s not slander if there are receipts, Mother," I replied coolly.
I flipped the first page. "Item one: Three hundred and forty thousand dollars siphoned from the Ashford Employee Pension Fund to pay off Arthur’s gambling debts at the Venetian Casino in Macao."
The crowd gasped. Several prominent corporate board members in the audience leaned forward, their faces darkening instantly.
"Item two," I read on, turning the page. "One hundred and eighty thousand dollars misallocated from the hotel maintenance budget to purchase a luxury yacht docked in Miami—registered under the name Elise's Pride."
Elise turned her head frantically toward our mother. "Mom! Do something! Make her stop!"
"Item three," I continued, my voice calm and unwavering. "The exact wedding you are standing in right now."
I looked out over the sea of velvet, lace, and diamonds.
"This venue was booked under an administrative corporate override code that my father stole from Grandmother’s study two days after her funeral. The floral arrangements, the five-star catering, the imported ice sculptures, the four-hundred-thousand-dollar diamond tiara sitting on my sister’s head right now—every single cent was charged directly to the Ashford Charitable Trust for Terminally Ill Children."
A loud, horrified gasp erupted from the back rows.
"My God..." a woman whispered loudly. "They stole from sick kids?"
"Marcus!" Elise screamed, grabbing her groom’s arm and shaking him wildly. "Say something! You work for the company! Tell them she can't do this!"
Marcus looked at me, then looked at Daniel Mercer, then slowly pulled his arm out of Elise’s tight grip.
"Marcus?" Elise whimpered, her voice cracking. "What are you doing?!"
"Marcus Vance," Daniel Mercer stated, pulling a white document from his folder and reading it aloud. "As of 8:30 this morning, your employment at Ashford Holdings as Vice President of Acquisitions has been terminated for gross negligence, conflict of interest, and active participation in corporate wire fraud."
Marcus looked down at the ground, his face pale as paper. "I told them, Elise," he muttered, his voice barely audible. "I told your father three weeks ago that the audits were failing. I told him we were going to get caught."
"You coward!" Elise shrieked, striking Marcus on the shoulder with her bouquet of orchids. "You useless coward!"
"And as for the venue," I cut in, my voice freezing the room instantly. "Since this estate is now my private residence, and since no commercial permit was ever issued or paid for... every single person here is currently committing civil trespass."
I turned my eyes back to my parents and sister.
"However, I am not without mercy," I said, offering a faint, chilling smile. "The guests are invited to enjoy the appetizers and step into the valet line outside the main gates. You have thirty minutes to clear the premises."
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"You can't kick us out of our own daughter's wedding!" my mother shrieked, taking two frantic steps toward me before being blocked by security. "We are your parents, Clara! We gave you life!"
"You gave me a room in the attic and twenty-four years of emotional abuse, Beatrice," I corrected her softly. "Now, let's talk about the eviction."
