Chapter 4 - The Morning After
The Sunday morning headlines were a bloodbath.
MILLIONAIRE GROOM ARRESTED AT LUXURY WEDDING AMID MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD SCANDAL.FOSTER ENTERPRISES COLLAPSES AS FEDERAL AGENTS SEIZE ASSETS.THE BRIDE WHO BROKE THE CON: HOW ELENA FOSTER UNMASKED A CORPORATE PREDATOR.
My phone hadn't stopped buzzing since 5:00 AM. Reporters, panicked board members, distant relatives, and socialites who had toasted our health less than twenty-four hours ago were now flooding my voicemail with desperate messages of shock and sympathy. I ignored them all, turning the device off and tossing it onto the kitchen island.
I stood in the sunlit kitchen of my penthouse apartment, pouring warm milk into a bowl of cereal for Daisy, who sat at the marble breakfast bar swinging her legs, still wearing her pink pajama set.
“Mommy, are we still going to the park today?” she asked, looking up with wide, innocent blue eyes.
“We sure are, sweetheart,” I smiled, setting the bowl down in front of her and brushing a stray curl from her forehead. “Just you and me. No parties, no fancy dresses, just swings and ice cream.”
“And Conrad?” she asked hesitantly.
My smile tightened slightly, but I kept my voice gentle. “Conrad is not coming back, Daisy. You never have to worry about him again.”
She let out a small, audible sigh of relief that broke my heart. Children possess an instinct adults spend a lifetime unlearning. She had known long before I did that something was profoundly wrong with the man sharing our home; she had simply lacked the vocabulary to explain it until she caught him red-handed in the groom’s suite.
The doorbell chimed softly.
I frowned, glancing at the wall clock. It was barely 8:30 AM.
Walking to the heavy oak security door, I checked the intercom monitor. Standing in the hallway, looking remarkably haggard and desperate in an unpressed suit, was Victoria Vance—Conrad’s mother, and the chairwoman of Foster Holdings’ board of directors.
I pressed the intercom button. “You’re wasting your time, Victoria. My lawyers are handling everything.”
“Elena, please open the door,” Victoria’s voice crackled through the speaker, sounding thin and panicked. “We need to talk. If the board liquidates Conrad’s shares without your consent, the entire family name will be destroyed. We can reach a private settlement—name your terms!”
“My terms are simple,” I said coldly into the mic. “Tell your son to plead guilty to every single federal charge, hand over full ownership of Mark’s engineering firm without a fight, and never, ever come near my daughter again.”
“Elena, you can’t be serious—!”
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“I’m deadly serious, Victoria,” I interrupted. “You raised a monster, and now you get to watch his empire burn to ash. Lose my number.”
I clicked off the intercom, walked back to the kitchen, and sat down beside my daughter, leaving Victoria standing alone in the hallway.
