Table 27.
It was as depressing as Eleanor had foreseen. The table was small, hidden behind a huge floral arrangement that intended to hide the entrance of service. The swinging doors of the kitchen were constantly opening and closing, filling the air with the strong smell of garlic and the screams of the catering staff, visibly stressed.
The other diners were distant relatives, third cousins of the Montgomerys, considered too insignificant for the front rows. They looked at me and my children with wide open and terrified eyes, pushing away their chairs as if we were contagious.
“Mom, what a noise is here!” said Caleb, covering his ears while a waiter dropped a tray of dirty glasses behind us.
“I know, honey,” I said, bringing him closer and kissing his crown. But don’t worry. We won’t be sitting here long.
I pulled out my phone and texted my assistant, Sarah.
Clara: Phase two. Now.
The change of power
Ten minutes later, the wedding ceremony attempted to resume, though the atmosphere was completely ruined. The priest stuttered when he pronounced the vows, Ethan kept looking at table 27 instead of his girlfriend, and Caroline seemed to want to strangle them both with her veil.
Just when the priest said, “Now I declare to you…” the loud roar of a helicopter’s engine began to resonate in the sky.
The guests raised the confused view. The sound intensified, vibrating through the glass chandeliers hanging from the garden tents. A huge and elegant corporate helicopter of matte black, with the logo of Aegis Global Media – my company – flew over the estate of Lake Geneva.
The wind from the rotors whipped the crowd, knocking down expensive floral arrangements and causing several women’s designer hats to fly into the fountains.
The helicopter did not land on the Montgomery’s private property. Instead, it remained suspended in the air at just the right height so that two men in bespoke black suits would descend a temporary ramp to the outer lawn, carrying a huge velvet-covered easel.
The guests were furious. Eleanor was shouting at his bodyguards, but the security team was paralyzed, because the helicopter had legal clearance and the men entering the property were high-profile corporate lawyers.
The two men passed directly by the security guards, heading toward the reception, and placed the velvet-covered easel right next to the main table where Eleanor, Ethan and Caroline were supposed to sit.
One of the lawyers, a man named Marcus Vance — the most relentless corporate lawyer in the Midwest, whom he had hired with a million-dollar advance six months ago — approached a microphone that had left the wedding orchestra.
“Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Montgomery family,” Marcus’ voice echoed on the speakers. “I apologize for interrupting this… charming event. But I’m here on behalf of my client, Clara Vance, before Montgomery.”
The crowd gasped. Ethan rose from the altar, his face pale. “What does this mean?” he shouted.
Marcus smiled calmly. “Five years ago, during the liquidation of Montgomery’s equity secondary assets, a major portfolio of digital technology and infrastructure was sold to a private holding company to cover the growing debts of this family. Over the past three years, the holding company was discreetly acquired by Aegis Global.”
Eleanor stumbled forward, holding on to the edge of a table. “What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with this wedding!”
“Actually, Mrs. Montgomery, it has everything to do with this property,” Marcus replied naturally. He reached out and removed the velvet cloth from the easel.
Below was a huge expanded legal document bearing the official Wisconsin State seal and the property registry office.
“At 9:00 a.m. yesterday,” Marcus announced, with a voice that resounded among the crowd of billionaires, “Aegis Global has completed the foreclosure and acquisition of the Lake Geneva estate due to the default on the structural loans that constituted the mortgage guarantee held by the Montgomery Trust.
The crowd kept a sepulchral silence. You could hear the wind whispering between the leaves.
“In short,” Marcus said, directing his gaze directly to Eleanor, “the Montgomery family no longer owns this mansion. My client, Clara, is the owner. Everything. From the gardens where you are to the roof that covers you.
The ultimatum
The scandal was total. Caroline’s mother, the senator’s wife, stood up and immediately began to drive her daughter away from the altar. “We are going! Caroline, pick up your things, we’re leaving right now!”
“Ethan?!” Caroline shouted, tears running down her face and ruining her makeup. Is that true? Are you bankrupt?!
Ethan couldn’t answer. He was staring at me.
I slowly got up from table 27. My three children were by my side, holding my hands. All eyes were on me again, but this time there was no compassion. Just absolute awe and terror. The woman who believed a shattered ex-wife had taken away their entire empire.
I slowly returned down the hallway, the tail of my emerald dress sliding over the fallen flowers. I stopped right in front of Eleanor and Ethan.
Eleanor seemed to have aged twenty years in twenty minutes. His empire, his reputation, his absolute control, shattered before the very people to whom he had dedicated his life to impressing.
“You,” Eleanor said with a broken voice, with his eyes injected in blood. You planned this. You came here to ruin my son’s life.
“No, Eleanor,” I said quietly, looking at her. I came to pick up what belongs to my children. Did you want me to sit by the kitchen door? You wanted me to remember my place? This is my place now. The whole estate.
Ethan stepped forward, with a broken voice. “Clara… please. Are they my kids? Why didn’t you tell me? We can fix this. We can be a family…”
“Ethan, five years ago you chose your mother and her money,” I said coldly. Now you’re not having a family just because your bank account is empty.
Marcus, my lawyer, stood by me and handed me an elegant leather folder.
“Now,” I said, addressing the Montgomery family, who were shocked and trembling, “as the legal owner of this property, I have every right to call the police and have you evicted all of you for trespassing. I could end this wedding right here, right now, and let the press see them packing their bags on the night news.
Eleanor gasped, taking his hand to his chest. Ethan seemed completely defeated.
“But,” I continued, with a slow, dangerous smile that stretched across my lips, “I am a reasonable woman. I am willing to grant you a twenty-four-hour temporary rental contract to end this ridiculous wedding and vacate the premises without the intervention of the police.
“What do you want, Clara?” Ethan asked in a hollow voice. What’s the trick?
I opened the leather folder, exposing a thick pile of documents on inheritance custody and restructuring.
“I want two things,” I said, lowering the voice to a whisper that only the three of them could hear. First, may Eleanor sign a full and legally binding waiver of any future right as a grandmother or contact with my children. He will never see them, never talk to them and never inherit a penny from their future.
Eleanor looked at me like he stabbed her.
“And second?” asked Ethan, his hands shaking.
I looked at him, then at the documents, and then at a black car that had just stopped near the door; a car in which a man whose face made Ethan freeze blood. A man who kept the only secret that the Montgomery family had tried to hide at all costs for thirty years.
I bowed to Ethan, my voice a whisper of pure poison.
“Second… you’re going to tell me the truth about what happened to my father thirty years ago in this same house. Because if you don’t…” I pointed to the door, where the mysterious man was getting out of the car. “…he will.”
