Chapter 3 - The Vestry Protocol
Inside my quiet apartment three miles away, the afternoon sun filtered through the blinds, casting long gold bars across my wooden coffee table.
My laptop sat open, displaying a private live stream feed that Brooke had secured through the church's public broadcast link. I watched in quiet silence as the sanctuary dissolved into absolute, beautiful chaos.
My phone rang. The caller ID read: Mother.
I let it ring until it went to voicemail. Two seconds later, it rang again. Father.
I picked up my cup, took a slow sip of hot coffee, and finally swiped the screen.
"Eleanor!" my mother’s voice erupted through the speaker, devoid of its usual polished composure. She was hyperventilating, the sound of screaming and crying echoing in the background. "What did you do?! What did you put on those screens?! Call the police right now! Tell them it's a mistake! Tell them you made it up!"
"Hello, Mother," I said mildly. "How was the walk down the aisle?"
"You monster!" she screamed, her dignity completely shattered. "Your sister is hyperventilating on the floor! Arthur is in handcuffs in the vestry! The FBI is in the church lobby! Do you have any idea what this is doing to our reputation?!"
"Your reputation was built on my stolen shares and a bigamist's lies, Mother," I said softly. "I'd say the reputation is finally matching the reality."
"You wicked, jealous little girl!" my father’s voice boomed as he snatched the phone from her. "You set us up! You planted those fake financial documents! I am the Chairman of Vance Crest Holdings! I will have you prosecuted for corporate sabotage!"
"You're not the Chairman anymore, Dad," I replied, opening a fresh document file on my laptop screen. "At 2:00 PM today, an emergency court injunction froze all corporate authority for Vance Crest Holdings. The board was notified thirty minutes ago. You no longer have access to the building, the accounts, or the executive server."
"You... you can't do that!" my father stammered, his threat instantly dissolving into panicked confusion. "The board answers to me!"
"The board answers to the shareholders," I corrected him. "And once they saw the evidence showing you forged my signature on the stock transfer documents while I was sedated in the hospital after my car accident two years ago, they voted unanimously to remove you."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the line.
"You were in on this with that woman from Seattle," my father rasped, his voice suddenly sounding old, frail, and terrified. "You've been planning this for months."
"Six months, actually," I said. "Ever since you told me Sienna understood how business works while I let emotions get in the way. It turns out, Dad, forensic accounting isn't emotional at all. It's just numbers. And your numbers don't add up."
"Eleanor, please..." my mother begged in the background, her voice breaking into pathetic sobs. "Think of your sister! She loved him! She didn't know!"
"She knew he was my fiancé when she took him into her bed, Mother," I said, my tone as cold and sharp as an icicle. "She knew those shares were mine when she accepted them as an early wedding gift. She wanted everything that belonged to me. Now she gets to share his debt, his scandal, and his public ruin."
"Eleanor—"
"Don't call this number again," I said. "Remember what you told me three days ago? If you come to that wedding, consider yourself no longer part of this family. I didn't come to the wedding, Mother. But I took you at your word."
I hung up the phone, placed it on airplane mode, and turned back to my laptop.
May you like
On the screen, federal agents were leading Arthur Vance out the side doors of St. Jude's in heavy wrist restraints. Behind him, Sienna was being held up by two crying bridesmaids, her white dress dragging through the dirt of the church courtyard, surrounded by local news reporters holding flashing cameras.
I closed the laptop screen and took another sip of my coffee.
