Victoria wiped a smear of red lipstick from her chin, her burgundy velvet gown bunched against the railing.
Victoria: You struck your lawful fiancee in front of the entire household!
Marcus: You dropped a six-year-old girl from a thirty-foot balcony, Victoria!
Victoria: She was leaning over the edge to look at the chandelier!
Lily: That's a lie, Daddy! She grabbed my wrists and pushed me over!
Victoria: The child has an overactive imagination, Marcus!
Marcus: I saw you open your hands with my own eyes the moment I stepped through the doors!
Victoria: My hands were slick from lotion! I lost my grip trying to pull her back!
Marcus: You didn't pull her back, Victoria. You let her drop like garbage.
Marcus knelt beside the marble pillar, gently wiping the tears from Lily's cheeks.
Marcus: Are you hurt anywhere else, baby? Tell Daddy right now.
Lily: My arms hurt where she squeezed me, Daddy. And my ribs sting.
Marcus pulled back the sleeve of her pink dress, revealing four dark purple finger bruises.
Marcus: Did you squeeze my daughter's arms like this, Victoria?
Victoria: She refused to eat her morning oatmeal! A stepmother has to teach discipline!
Lily: She dumped cold water on my head because I asked for Mommy's picture!
Marcus: You poured water on my grieving child because she missed her mother?
Victoria: Clara died three years ago, Marcus! She has been in a cemetery for three years!
Marcus: Clara built the logistics software that made Vance Maritime worth billions.
Victoria: Well, she left those billions behind, and now they belong to our new marriage!
Marcus: There is no marriage, Victoria. The wedding is canceled forever.
Victoria: You cannot cancel our wedding! We have five hundred high-society guests arriving on Saturday!
Marcus: Tell every single one of them to stay home, because you'll be sitting in a concrete cell.
Victoria: On what charges?! You have no proof of anything that happened out here!
Marcus: I have two eyes, Victoria. And I have the sworn statements of my staff.
Victoria: The staff works for me! I sign their weekly paychecks!
Marcus: You don't sign a single thing in this mansion, Victoria.
Victoria: My father invested forty million dollars in your maritime shipping fleet last month!
Marcus: Your father didn't invest forty million dollars of clean money.
Victoria: What are you talking about?! Vance Maritime holds thirty percent of your equity shares!
Marcus: Vance Maritime is an empty corporate front that went bankrupt four months ago.
Victoria froze on the balcony tiles, her burgundy gown rustling in the breeze.
Victoria: That is slander! My father is a respected commissioner on the Dallas commerce board!
Marcus: Your father was arrested at his private hangar thirty minutes ago by federal marshals.
The antique clock inside the library chimed three times, echoing through the heavy silence.
Victoria: Arrested...?! You're bluffing! You're inventing lies to scare me!
Marcus: Look at your phone sitting on the patio table, Victoria.
Victoria grabbed her gold smartphone with shaking hands, tapping the screen rapidly.
Her display lit up with forty-five missed calls and breaking news alerts from the local papers.
Victoria: 'Vance Maritime raided by federal task force... Chairman Arthur Vance in custody'...
Marcus: The Department of Justice unsealed the grand jury indictment at noon today.
Victoria dropped the phone onto the stone, her eyes wide with mounting terror.
Victoria: Arthur promised me our family finances were completely protected!
Marcus: Your father spent three years stealing money from our joint logistics escrow accounts.
Victoria: Those transfers were routine inter-company bridge loans! We were going to pay them back!
Marcus: You were never going to pay back a single dime, Victoria.
Victoria backed up against the railing, realizing every single lie was falling apart right before her eyes.
Victoria: I am still entitled to the prenuptial settlement! We filed it with the clerk!
Marcus: A prenuptial agreement based on fraud is completely void under state law.
Victoria: You cannot throw me out into the street with nothing, Marcus!
Marcus: You are not going into the street, Victoria. You are going into federal custody.
Lily wrapped her arms around Marcus's neck, looking down at the trembling woman.
Lily: Daddy, don't let her touch my mommy's jewelry box in the master suite.
Marcus: Nobody is touching anything that belonged to your mother ever again, Lily.
Victoria pulled herself up, her fingernails digging hard into the cold limestone railing.
Victoria: You think you have won, Marcus, but you have no witnesses to prove I dropped her!
Marcus smiled coldly, his gaze locking onto the woman who had brought terror into his home.
Marcus: You always were too arrogant to look at the ceiling, Victoria.