Juliet’s skin turned an ashen grey, the heavy wedding makeup making her face look like a cracked porcelain mask.
Juliet: Gerald gave you his files? That traitorous snake... I gave him half a million dollars to retire in Florida!
Officer Miller: Ma'am, keep your hands visible. Do not reach into your bridal bag.
Richard: You paid your cousin half a million dollars to imprison a girl? What kind of monster are you, Juliet?
Juliet: Shut your mouth, Richard! You didn't complain when I bought you that Italian sports car last month!
Richard: You told me that was a wedding gift from your family's personal savings!
Caroline: Those savings were meant for pediatric cancer research, Richard. My father created that charity fund three days before he died.
Caroline stepped closer, her bruised jaw set in hard stone as she stared at the woman who tried to erase her from existence.
Caroline: Do you know what it feels like to wake up every morning strapped to a vinyl mattress, wondering if anyone in the world remembers your name?
Juliet sneered, a desperate, feral look creeping into her narrowed eyes.
Juliet: You were always weak, Caroline. Just like your soft-hearted father. He wanted to give half the business away to factory line workers!
Caroline: Those workers built the Mercer enterprise with their bare hands! You spent your life doing nothing but spending their retirement bonuses!
Juliet: Charles built nothing! I gave him the political connections in Albany that kept his shipping lines open!
Marcus Mercer: You gave him nothing but high blood pressure and heartbreak, Juliet. He came to my office crying two weeks before his death.
Marcus walked up the steps and stood directly alongside his niece, his arm wrapping protective and firm around Caroline’s bruised shoulders.
Marcus: Charles knew you were stealing from the escrow accounts. He told me he was filing for divorce on Monday morning.
Juliet: He didn't know anything! He couldn't even read his own balance sheets without his glasses!
Caroline: But I could read them, Juliet. And I had backups stored on an encrypted external drive in my father's safe-deposit box.
Juliet stepped back until her spine hit the heavy brass altar cross.
Juliet: The safe-deposit box was drilled open! The bank manager gave me the contents six months ago!
Attorney Hayes: You received the decoy drive, Mrs. Vance. The real documents were held in escrow at my private office under strict instructions.
Arthur pulled a crisp, blue-bound legal docket from the briefcase and slapped it flat against the altar rail.
Attorney Hayes: This is a certified order from the United States District Court, signed at four this morning by Judge Harrison.
Juliet: Harrison? He is a family friend! He wouldn't sign an order against me without calling first!
Attorney Hayes: Judge Harrison reviewed the surveillance tapes from the clinic, Juliet. He wept when he saw what your guards did to this young woman.
Juliet’s breath caught in her throat. She looked around the chapel, seeking an ally, but every face was turned away in pure disgust.
Richard: Father Thomas, stop this wedding immediately. I am leaving.
Juliet: Richard, wait! If you walk out that door, you get nothing! Not one cent of the settlement money!
Richard: There is no settlement money, Juliet! You are going to prison for the rest of your life!
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