“What are we supposed to do?”
“The same thing you told me to do every time I asked for respect.
Manage.”
Justin stepped toward me.
“You’re destroying everyone because Vanessa made one joke.”
“No,” I said.
“The joke made me look.
What I found did the rest.”
Helen turned another page toward him.
It was an email chain between Justin and a junior attorney employed by Moreau Holdings.
In it, Justin described my approval as a formality and promised that the ownership transfer would be completed before the wedding.
He had also claimed my father remained the controlling director of Golden Leaf.
Lucien read the final message twice.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
“Did you know the transfer was not complete?”
She crossed her arms.
“Justin said Monica was difficult but manageable.”
“That was not my question.”
Vanessa glanced at Justin.
“I knew she had not signed yet.”
Celeste inhaled sharply.
Lucien’s voice became quieter.
“And you still announced the estate as your future property?”
“It was going to be ours.”
“You mocked its owner in her own home while wearing property taken from her.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled, but her tears looked more furious than wounded.
“You always take strangers’ sides.”
“No,” Lucien said.
“I take the side of documents when my daughter brings me lies.”
Justin reached for Vanessa’s hand.
She pulled away.
He whispered her name.
She turned on him with all the contempt she had aimed at me earlier.
“What do you actually own?”
He stood beneath the chandelier, surrounded by flowers charged to the estate account, drinking wine he had not made in a ballroom he did not own.
He had no answer.
I glanced toward Elias.
He understood immediately and nodded to the banquet manager.
The music stopped.
Servers began removing unopened bottles of the reserve Cabernet from the tables.
That wine was allocated for buyers and club members, not for a celebration built on fraud.
My father noticed.
“Monica, do not make a spectacle.”
“The spectacle started before I arrived.”
Two estate security officers entered through the service corridor.
I had known them both for years.
Neither moved aggressively.
They simply took positions near the doors while Helen collected the original documents.
Justin’s face reddened.
“You called security on your own family?”
“I called security because a falsified document involving this property was presented to an international company.”
Lucien nodded to his attorney, who had just entered behind Helen.
“Our counsel will preserve all communications,” he said.
“The engagement agreement is suspended, and the proposed hospitality partnership with Justin is terminated.”
Vanessa stared at him.
