Chapter 6 - The Unraveling Name
The whispers in the ballroom rose like a sudden swarm of angry hornets.
“Did she just call him... uncle?”
“Vanderbilt doesn’t have another niece... does he?”
“Look at Arthur’s face. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.”
Arthur Vanderbilt stood frozen, his manicured fingers trembling against the lapel of his tuxedo. The impenetrable mask of corporate invincibility he had worn for forty years was cracking right down the middle, revealing the panic underneath.
“Security, let her go,” Arthur ordered, his voice tight and breathless.
The two guards hesitated, looking between the bleeding patriarch and each other. “Sir?”
“I said, let her go!” Arthur roared, his face flushing a furious crimson.
The guards immediately dropped their grip on my arms. I straightened my shoulders, brushing down the front of my catering uniform with deliberate slowness. I didn't flinch as I wiped a smear of blood from my cheek with the back of my hand.
Chloe rushed to her father’s side, clutching his arm, her eyes wild with hysteria. “Dad! What is wrong with you?! Why are you yelling at them? Arrest this psycho! She’s bleeding on the rug and she attacked me!”
“Shut up, Chloe,” Arthur snapped, his voice dropping into a harsh, venomous hiss that made even his pampered daughter recoil.
Arthur turned back to me, his jaw working as if he were trying to swallow glass. “Elena,” he whispered, the name slipping out like a curse. “You were supposed to be in Chicago. Or dead. We set up the trust fund—we paid your aunt off—”
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“You bought off a broken, terrified woman with a pittance and dumped us in a slum while you built a multi-billion-dollar empire on my father’s grave,” I replied, my voice slicing through the heavy ballroom air. “Did you really think blood washes out that easily, Uncle?”
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