Vanessa took a step back, her high heels catching slightly on the edge of her embroidered train.
Vanessa: Julian, you're having an emotional breakdown. Let the security guards take him to child services, and we can finish the vows.
Julian: If anyone touches this boy, I will ruin every single person in this room who laid a finger on him.
Leo: Dad, my backpack is by the front bench. I brought the papers.
Julian signaled to his best man, Marcus, who rushed down the aisle and retrieved a faded canvas bag.
Julian: Open it, Marcus.
Marcus: Julian... there are bank withdrawal slips here. Signed by Vanessa Vance.
Vanessa: Marcus, put those down! That is private property!
Marcus: Fifty thousand dollars every quarter. Wired to an offshore account in Belize linked to Thomas Henderson.
Julian: Explain that, Vanessa. Right now, in front of God and your family.
Vanessa: It was an investment! Henderson was consulting for my father's shipping firm!
Leo: He wasn't consulting! He left his folder on the kitchen table when he got drunk last week! It had my real birth certificate inside!
Leo reached into his pocket and handed a folded, yellowed paper directly to Julian.
Julian: State of Texas... Certificate of Live Birth. Leo Sterling. Mother: Claire Vance-Sterling. Father: Julian Sterling.
Tears welled up in Julian's eyes, dripping down onto his lapel.
Julian: Claire didn't die instantly in that ravine. She survived long enough to protect him.
Vanessa: Julian, please... you don't know the whole story. Claire was reckless! She would have ruined you!
Julian: Claire was your own cousin!
The cathedral went dead silent; even the whispers stopped entirely.
Vanessa: She had everything! She had the family estate, the shares, the love of the entire family... and then she took you!
Julian: She didn't take me. We fell in love. And you spent five years pretending to comfort me while paying off thugs to hold my son hostage.
Vanessa: He didn't belong in our world, Julian! Look at him! He's dirty, he's uneducated! I was going to give you real children, proper heirs!
Julian: You disgust me to the very core of my soul.
Julian ripped the white flower from his lapel and crushed it in his fist, letting the petals flutter onto the marble.
Julian: The wedding is over. The engagement is terminated. And your life as a free woman ends today.
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