Victoria: You hit me, Marcus! You laid hands on an heiress in your own home!
Marcus: You dropped a three-year-old boy thirty feet down into the foyer!
Victoria: He was climbing over the spindles to touch the crystal chandelier!
Toby: That's not true, Daddy! She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me!
Victoria: The child is confused, Marcus! He had a nightmare this morning!
Marcus: Toby has never lied to me in his life, Victoria.
Victoria: I lunged forward to grab his overalls, but my foot slipped on the wax!
Marcus: I saw you plant both palms against his chest and push him, Victoria.
Marcus gently rested Toby on the wide settee near the upper library doors.
Marcus: Are you hurt anywhere else, buddy? Tell Daddy right now.
Toby: My ribs sting where she squeezed me before you came in, Dad.
Marcus lifted the hem of Toby's light blue overalls, feeling his stomach turn.
Four deep purple bruises were dug into the toddler's pale skin.
Marcus: Did you pinch my son this morning, Victoria?
Victoria: He spilled orange juice on the Persian rug in the dining room!
Toby: She dumped cold water on my head because I asked for Mommy's picture!
Marcus: You dumped water on my child because he asked for his late mother?
Victoria: Sarah died two years ago, Marcus! This boy needs to stop living in the past!
Marcus: Sarah built the foundation of this company, and you aren't fit to speak her name.
Victoria: I am your legal fiancee! We are announcing our marriage at the country club tomorrow!
Marcus: There is no marriage, Victoria. The wedding is canceled forever.
Victoria pushed herself up from the marble floor, her crimson velvet gown rustling violently.
Victoria: You cannot cancel our wedding! We have five hundred high-society guests arriving!
Marcus: Tell your guests to stay home, because you will be sitting in a county jail cell.
Victoria: On what possible criminal charge?! You have zero proof of anything that happened!
Marcus: I have two eyes, Victoria. And I have the testimony of my staff.
Victoria: The staff works for me! I sign their weekly payroll checks!
Marcus: You don't sign a single thing in this mansion, Victoria.
Victoria: My father invested forty million dollars in your maritime logistics network 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 painted lips parting in sudden, paralyzed shock.
Victoria: That is slander! My father sits on the Dallas commerce board!
Marcus: Your father was arrested at his private hangar thirty minutes ago by federal marshals.
The grandfather clock in the gallery chimed loudly, echoing through the heavy silence.
Victoria: Arrested...?! You're bluffing! You're making up wild stories to break our engagement!
Marcus: Look at your phone sitting on the marble table, Victoria.
Victoria grabbed her 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 Texas statutory 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.
Toby wrapped his arms around Marcus's neck, burying his face into his father's collar.
Toby: 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, Toby.
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 him!
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.