Chapter 3 - The Threat
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The romantic wedding music outside the heavy oak door grew significantly louder, a mocking soundtrack while I lay breathing through another agonizing contraction on the cold bathroom floor.
Suddenly, someone tested the brass handle from the outside.
"Claire?" Celeste called out, her voice sickly sweet and entirely fake. "Mom says you spilled wine on your dress. Do you need a towel?"
"My water broke, Celeste," I managed to say, my voice straining. "Open the damn door."
Silence hung in the air for a long moment. Then, she actually laughed softly.
"Of course you chose today to ruin everything," Celeste said, her tone laced with pure, narcissistic irritation.
I heard Victoria’s sharp whisper cut through the music. "The ambulance will bring flashing lights and sirens. It will ruin the photographs. Tell the staff she is completely drunk and had to be isolated."
My hand tightened violently around the heavy emergency phone. Mara remained silently connected through the encrypted open line, crystal clear, recording every single horrific word they spoke.
Celeste raised her voice, ensuring I could hear her through the thick wood. "You’ve always been incredibly jealous of me, Claire. This is just pathetic."
I almost smiled through the pain. Even now, while committing a felony, they desperately needed an audience to perform for.
"I am actively in labor," I said, leaning my forehead against the cool tile. "This is your last chance to unlock this door before you regret it."
Victoria scoffed loudly. "Do not dare threaten us in our own vineyard, you little nobody."
That specific sentence mattered immensely. The sprawling, lucrative vineyard was not legally theirs.
Three years earlier, Bellacourt had nearly collapsed entirely under the crushing weight of massive, hidden debt. Victoria, desperate and crying, had convinced me to place the massive property into a complex restructuring trust, claiming it was the only way to protect their precious family legacy.
Because of her profound arrogance, she never actually read the controlling documents I drafted.
I had personally contributed the necessary rescue capital through a massive, private inheritance from my late mother. In exchange for saving their empire, the trust gave me absolute, unilateral authority to remove current management immediately for documented fraud, criminal conduct, or reckless endangerment.
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They fully believed the money came from Evan’s secret accounts. They also firmly believed the dense trust agreement was merely ceremonial paperwork prepared by a timid, compliant daughter-in-law who would never dare challenge their authority.
Another massive contraction tore violently through me. I bit down hard on the sleeve of my dress to keep from screaming out loud.
