Chapter 4 - The Opening Salvo
The private dining room behind the main ballroom was panelled in dark English oak, smelling faintly of aged leather and burning birch. A long mahogany table was set for twelve, though only the core trustees—Arthur Pendelton, Margaret Pendelton, and corporate treasurer Julian Thorne—sat around it alongside Rowan and Abigail.
Celeste remained standing near the head of the table, her face flushed with a dangerous mixture of humiliation and fury as she realized Rowan had barred her from sitting at the primary directors' seats. Instead, she was forced to stand near the service doors like an accused defendant waiting for a tribunal.
“Rowan, this is absurd,” Celeste hissed, crossing her arms over her emerald velvet bodice. “You are allowing a domestic dispute to derail an official board dinner. If you have personal grievances with how I managed the household while you were in Singapore, we can discuss it in private arbitration tomorrow.”
“This isn't a domestic dispute, Celeste,” Rowan said evenly, sliding a heavy leather-bound folio across the polished wood toward Arthur Pendelton. “This is a forensic audit of eighty-six thousand, four hundred dollars in fraudulent disbursements routed out of the family trust over the last six weeks.”
Arthur Pendelton frowned, picking up the folio. He opened it, his eyes scanning the first page of certified bank records, transaction IDs, and IP routing logs.
“Eighty-six thousand?” Julian Thorne, the treasurer, leaned over to look at the numbers, his eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. “That’s not petty cash, Rowan. That’s nearly half of the quarterly contingency fund.”
“Indeed it is, Julian,” Rowan replied, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned back in his leather chair. “And according to the forged documentation submitted to this board on Tuesday—documentation designed to frame my wife for financial negligence—those funds were allegedly spent on private nurses and home medical monitoring that never existed.”
Celeste slammed her hand down on the table, the crystal water glasses ringing in protest.
“It’s a forgery!” she shrieked, her mask completely shattering. “She had access to the master terminal! She did it to hide her own lavish spending habits while you were away! Look at her—she thinks she can marry into the Armand family and treat our generational wealth like a personal shopping spree!”
Abigail didn't flinch. She simply reached into her small evening clutch, pulled out a slim legal tablet, and slid it across the table toward Margaret Pendelton.
“These are the certified medical logs from St. Jude’s Regional Hospital,” Abigail said, her voice soft but diamond-sharp. “Including the exact timestamps of every prenatal visit I managed to attend before Celeste had the garage gates locked to prevent my driver from taking me out.”
Margaret Pendelton flipped through the hospital documents, her expression hardening with every page. She looked up at Celeste, her eyes filled with cold disappointment.
“Celeste,” Margaret said quietly. “These records show you called the clinic three separate times pretending to be Abigail, attempting to cancel her scheduled check-ups under the guise of ‘bed rest complications.’”
The room went dead silent.
Celeste opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her face turned the color of curdled milk. She looked desperately around the table, seeking an ally, but Arthur Pendelton was already staring down at her with undisguised disgust.
“You forged medical documents,” Arthur said slowly, his voice shaking with restrained rage. “You manipulated a board audit, and you attempted to frame your brother’s pregnant wife for financial embezzlement.”
“She’s an outsider!” Celeste finally screamed, losing all remaining shreds of decorum as she pointed a trembling finger at Abigail. “She doesn't belong here! She’s a nobody from Brookline who trapped Rowan with a belly just to secure a lifetime annuity! If I hadn't stepped in, she would have bled this estate dry by the time the baby was born!”
Rowan stood up so violently that his heavy oak chair scraped loudly against the parquet floor.
The sound was thunderous in the confined space.
“Get out,” Rowan said.
Celeste stumbled back a step, her eyes wide. “Rowan—you can’t throw me out. I am an Armand! This is my family home too!”
“Not anymore,” Rowan replied, his voice cold as a glacier. “Marcus Vance is waiting in the study with federal marshals and civil asset forfeiture officers. Your shares in the holding company have been legally frozen under emergency fraud provisions. Every keycard, every vehicle, and every credit card attached to your name has been deactivated as of four o'clock this afternoon.”
He took a step toward her, his towering frame casting a shadow over her trembling figure.
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“If you are still on this property when the clock strikes seven,” Rowan whispered, “I won't just let the federal prosecutors throw the book at you. I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your natural life in a cell so deep you’ll forget what sunlight looks like.”
For the first time since Abigail had met her, Celeste looked truly, terrifyingly small. She looked around the table once more, saw only stone-cold judgment in every pair of eyes, and then turned on her heel, fleeing out the service doors into the cold snowy night without a single word.
