Vince stepped directly into Victoria's path, cutting off her line to the private elevator foyer with immovable authority.
Vince: Hand over the bag, Victoria.
Victoria: You are making a catastrophic legal mistake, Vince. My family's hedge fund holds the majority debt on your commercial real estate portfolio!
Vince: I don't give a damn about commercial real estate right now. Give me the bag.
With a swift, controlled yank, Vince stripped the designer leather tote from her manicured grip and turned it upside down over the marble center table.
Victoria: Stop! That's private property!
A heavy gold key fob, three foreign passports, a brass master key with a hand-labeled wooden tag, and Clara's platinum heirloom necklace spilled across the polished stone.
Chloe: That's Mommy's wedding jewelry! She told me Grandma gave that to her on her wedding day!
Vince picked up the brass key, staring at the faded black marker scrawled across the wood: Lake Bastrop Cabin #4.
Vince: You told me you sold the Bastrop land six months ago to pay off Clara's supposed medical bills.
Victoria: The buyer backed out at closing! I didn't want to burden you with the maintenance fees while you were recovering from heart surgery!
Vince: Then why is this key sitting next to two forged cashier's checks drawn against my daughter's educational trust fund?
Victoria: Those were reinvestment bonds, you idiot! If you don't roll over that capital by the end of the fiscal quarter, the IRS will seize thirty percent in penalties!
Vince: Don't lecture me on corporate finance. I founded this tech conglomerate before you even got your junior broker license.
Chloe pulled on the hem of Vince's shirt, pointing at Victoria's left wrist where a faint red welt showed under her diamond watch.
Chloe: Daddy, she was at the lake yesterday! Her shoes smelled like river mud when she came home last night!
Victoria: Shut up, you wretched little sneak!
Vince: Don't you ever raise your voice at my child again in this house!
Victoria: She's ruining our future, Vince! We had a plan! We were going to merge the corporate assets and take the firm public on Wall Street!
Vince: That was your plan. My plan was finding out why my wife's vehicle vanished off a bridge with no trace of her body inside.
Victoria: The state divers searched that riverbed for three weeks! There was nothing left to find!
Vince: Except her private emergency phone, which just pinged off a rural cell tower forty miles south of Austin ten minutes ago.
Victoria's lower lip quivered as she realized what Vince had been doing on his tablet before walking into the hallway.
Victoria: You... you tracked the incoming call?
Vince: Did you really think I built a multimillion-dollar cybersecurity firm without setting up instant geo-location pings on every device registered to my family account?
Victoria: Vince, listen to me... let's talk about this in your private office. Just the two of us.
Vince: We have nothing left to discuss behind closed doors.
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