Elena pushed the heavy doors open, the cool evening breeze sweeping through the opulent dining corridor.
Julian: If you walk out, Elena, you get nothing! No settlement, no wedding, no safety!
Elena: I already have everything I need. My self-respect.
Victoria: You’ll be begging to come back when your father's medical bills come due at the end of the month!
Elena paused at the edge of the terrace and looked back over her shoulder with a small, knowing smile.
Elena: Oh, I forgot to mention one detail, Victoria.
Victoria: What lie are you going to invent now?
Elena: The clinic loan? Arthur paid it off in full through his personal account last autumn.
Victoria gasped, dropping her designer clutch onto the wet stone patio.
Victoria: That’s impossible! The records showed an active balance!
Elena: Because Marcus kept it active on paper so you wouldn't find out Arthur had protected my family.
Julian: Dad protected her father? Why would he do that?
Elena: Because my father was the volunteer medic who held Arthur's hand when his car crashed on Highway 9 ten years ago.
The silence returned, complete and total, as Julian looked at his mother with utter horror.
Julian: That was her dad? The man who pulled Dad from the burning wreck?
Victoria: I... I didn't know that was his name.
Elena: You never cared to learn his name. People like you only look at price tags.
Elena walked down the wide granite stairs into the mist of the courtyard where her father was waiting in an old sedan.
Elena's Father: How did it go, sweetheart?
Elena: Exactly the way Arthur said it would, Dad.
Elena's Father: Are you okay?
Elena: For the first time in two years, I can finally breathe.
She climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut, leaving the grand mansion lights fading behind in the rearview mirror.
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