Chapter 3 - The Unraveling of a IllusionGasping whispers exploded across the ballroom.
"What did he say?" a local councilwoman whispered to her husband. "The quadruplets?"
"Starving?" another guest murmured.
Bianca’s eyes dilated with sheer, frantic terror. "Ethan, you're crazy! You're confused from the flight! The girls are fine! They're upstairs in their playroom eating catering! They’re just picky eaters—you know how Clara raised them to be spoiled!"
The moment the name Clara left Bianca's mouth, Marcus and four armed security guards stepped onto the floor from every exit, locking the heavy brass doors from the inside.
"Nobody leaves," Marcus announced coldly to the crowd. "Local law enforcement and federal investigators are currently en route."
"Investigators?!" Bianca shrieked, backing away until her spine hit the edge of the bar. "For what?! I am your wife, Ethan! You can't treat me like a criminal in my own home!"
"This was never your home, Bianca," Ethan stated coldly. He pulled a thick leather-bound dossier from Marcus's hands and opened it flat on the bar.
"Let's review where the six million dollars I wired over the last six months went," Ethan said, reading from the certified forensic bank audit.
"Two hundred thousand dollars to a private clinic in Switzerland for your cosmetic procedures. One point two million to a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands under your brother's name. Five hundred thousand for luxury vehicles. And as for the pediatric nutritionist, the private child therapist, and the two live-in nannies I hired?"
Ethan looked up, his eyes black as pitch.
"You fired them all five months ago, kept their salaries, and locked my daughters in the unheated west wing so they wouldn't interfere with your parties."
Bianca stumbled, her high heel catching on her gown's hem, sending her tumbling onto the marble floor. Her diamonds clattered against the stone.
"I... I was trying to discipline them!" Bianca wept, her sophisticated facade shattering into ugly, desperate sob stories. "They were always crying about their mother! They didn't respect me! They called me an intruder! I just wanted them to learn who was in charge!"
"They were four years old when their mother died of cancer, Bianca," Ethan whispered, kneeling down so his face was inches from hers. "They were five when you tried to erase her memory."
He reached out, his long fingers gently catching the canary diamond necklace around her neck. With a swift, sharp tug, the platinum clasp snapped.
"These diamonds were bought with the trust fund money meant for Mia's heart surgery," Ethan said softly, sliding the necklace into his pocket. "You didn't just steal from me, Bianca. You stole from helpless children."
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Heavy boots echoed from the front foyer.
The double oak doors burst open, and six uniformed Aspen police officers, accompanied by two child protective investigators and an assistant district attorney, walked onto the marble floor.
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