Isabella: What is that folder? Why are you waving old legal filings in my face?
Marcus: This is the forensic accounting audit from Vance Maritime Holdings.
Isabella: My father's corporate books are completely private! You had no legal authority to access those accounts!
Marcus: The United States Department of Justice had every authority when they unsealed the indictment at noon.
Isabella's hand flew to her throat, her diamond bracelet clattering against her wrist.
Isabella: Indictment? What indictment?! My father is an honorable commissioner on the Gulf port authority!
Marcus: Your father was arrested at his private hangar in Fort Worth forty-five minutes ago, Isabella.
Isabella: That is an absurd lie! He is boarding a private jet to New York for a banking summit!
Marcus: He was boarding a charter to Zurich with twelve million dollars in bearer bonds stuffed into flight cases.
Isabella: No... No! That's impossible! Arthur promised me our finances were completely secured!
Marcus: Your father spent four years siphoning capital from our joint logistics escrow accounts to cover his losses.
Isabella: Those transfers were authorized bridge loans! We were going to replace every dime after our wedding!
Marcus: You were never going to replace anything. You needed my signature on the trust merger to swallow my firm whole.
Isabella: I loved you, Marcus! I wanted to build an empire together with you!
Marcus: You loved the eighty-million-dollar trust fund that my late wife left behind for our boy.
Isabella: Sarah died three years ago! Her capital belongs to the woman running her household now!
Marcus: You never ran this household, Isabella. You spent six months trying to erase my wife's memory.
Isabella: I remodeled the drawing room! I hosted charity brunches for your business associates!
Marcus: You threw Sarah's oil portraits into the basement furnace room and tried to sell her jewelry collection in Austin!
Isabella: Those portraits were dated and dark! This mansion needed modern elegance!
Marcus: This mansion needed a mother's heart, not an arrogant predator hunting for voting stock.
Isabella stepped back, her heels clicking nervously against the polished stone tiles.
Isabella: You can't void our corporate agreements, Marcus! The board voted seven to three in favor of the merger!
Marcus: The board voted based on fraudulent bank statements provided by your brother Richard.
Isabella: Richard is a licensed corporate attorney! He verified every asset statement himself!
Marcus: Richard was disbarred by the Texas Supreme Court two hours ago, Isabella.
Isabella gasped, her eyes widening in pure, unmasked panic as her chest rose and fell rapidly.
Isabella: Disbarred...? Why would they disbar Richard?!
Marcus: Because he surrendered forty gigabytes of encrypted financial ledgers to federal prosecutors this morning.
Isabella: Richard surrendered our files?! That coward gave them our personal files?!
Marcus: He traded you and your father to keep himself out of a federal penitentiary in Colorado.
Isabella: That selfish, pathetic traitor! He swore on our mother's grave he would protect the family name!
Marcus: Criminals always eat each other alive the moment the handcuffs rattle, Isabella.
Isabella: Marcus, please... Let us settle this privately inside your study! We can restructure the debt!
Marcus: There is nothing to restructure. You sealed my son inside a brick wall to keep him from attending the gala!
Isabella: I didn't want him disturbing the keynote speeches with his crying!
Marcus: You wanted him out of the way because tonight's merger documents required his legal guardian's signature!
Isabella's breath seized in her throat, her gaze darting toward the heavy mahogany front doors.
Isabella: What are you talking about? You are his legal guardian!
Marcus: Not according to the court decree signed by Judge Harrison ninety minutes ago.
Marcus pulled a second certified document from the folder, holding the gold notary seal before her eyes.
Marcus: Ethan's sixty percent voting stock has been placed into an independent trust managed solely by his grandmother.
Isabella stumbled backward, clutching the marble balustrade as the ground seemed to vanish beneath her designer heels.
Isabella: His grandmother...? Eleanor Vance has lived in Europe for five years!
Marcus: Eleanor landed at Dallas Love Field thirty minutes ago, Isabella. And she is walking through those doors right now.