Chapter 3
Back inside the grand ballroom of Thorn Manor, chaos had degenerated into bitter hysteria.
A private physician knelt on the hardwood floor, using tweezers to extract white porcelain slivers from Marguerite’s swollen cheekbone. Blood stained her ivory Chanel silk dress, mixing with smeared béarnaise sauce and crushed capers.
"She tried to kill me!" Marguerite shrieked, batting the doctor's hands away as she glared at Edward. "Did you see her eyes, Father? She is an animal! Have her arrested! Call the chief of police this instant!"
"Shut your mouth, Marguerite," Edward snapped, pacing back and forth before the roaring marble hearth. He had ripped the paper crown from his head, crumpling it into the dying embers. His face was purple with humiliation. "Half the municipal council is sitting in that hallway watching you scream like a fishwife! You provoked her!"
"I provoked her?" Marguerite gasped, rising to her feet despite the doctor’s protests. "She brought three bastard children to your seventieth jubilee! She expected them to sit with the Board of Governors! I protected your dignity!"
"You humiliated them in public!" shouted Lawrence, Edward's younger brother, dabbing a red wine stain from his lapel. "You told four-year-old children to eat scraps from the floor, Marguerite! The Senator was standing right behind you! He left through the garden terrace without even wishing Edward happy birthday!"
"Enough!" Edward bellowed, slamming his fist onto the ruined buffet table. Silver platters clattered. "The girl has always been unstable. Ever since her mother died, Linnea thought she owned a stake in this family. She has nothing. No money, no allies, no roof over her head. She threw a tantrum because she is broke."
The ballroom double doors swung open with a resounding bang.
Two men in charcoal tactical suits stepped into the room, their hands resting neutrally over the holsters on their tactical belts. Behind them walked Julian Vance, his long wool coat unbuttoned, carrying a gilded leather briefcase under his arm.
Edward scowled, stepping forward with imperious authority. "Who authorized you to enter my home? Vance, isn't it? Eleanor’s former probate attorney. If you’re here on behalf of my rebellious daughter, tell her she has twenty-four hours to turn herself in for aggravated assault."
"Mr. Edward Thorn," Julian said, his tone as pleasant and lethal as a drawn blade. "I am not here on behalf of a runaway daughter. I am here on behalf of the sole legal owner of Blackwood Estate."
Marguerite spat blood onto a napkin, sneering through swollen lips. "Are you senile, Vance? Father owns every brick of this cemetery. Get out before our security throws you into the lake."
"Your security guards have already been dismissed and replaced by Vance Maritime Protection," Julian replied, glancing calmly at his watch. "And as for the deed to Blackwood Estate—it was placed into an irrevocable blind trust by the late Eleanor Thorn upon her death twenty years ago. The clause was explicit: should Edward Thorn commit corporate negligence exceeding twenty million dollars, full title reverts immediately to the sole legitimate heiress upon her twenty-eighth birthday."
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Edward froze, his face draining of color until he resembled a corpse in an evening suit. "That trust was dissolved in probate."
"You thought it was dissolved," Julian said, pulling a court order stamped with red wax from his folder and holding it before Edward’s eyes. "Because you never read the foreign codicil filed in Geneva. Linnea turned twenty-eight last Tuesday, Edward. You are currently trespassing on her property."
