Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of the Heiress
The double doors to the drawing room opened, revealing Bianca sitting on the sofa, her face puffy and stained with mascara. When she saw her mother enter, she let out a wail and threw herself into Eleanor’s arms.
“Mother! He’s insane! He locked me in the room! He let that filthy maid Emma talk back to me!” Bianca sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at Vittorio, who stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. “He made Marcus bleed! He’s a monster!”
Eleanor wrapped an arm around her daughter, trying to regain her icy composure, but her eyes kept darting to the broken cane in the foyer. “You will pay for this humiliation, Vittorio. My brother sits on the appellate court. We will have you tied up in grand jury subpoenas until you are begging us for mercy. The wedding is off! We are leaving, and we are taking the settlement promised in the prenuptial agreement!”
“What prenuptial agreement?” Vittorio asked, tilting his head.
“The draft signed two months ago!” Eleanor hissed. “Five million dollars upon termination of engagement without mutual cause!”
Vittorio smiled—a slow, terrifying curve of his lips that made both women shrink back into the sofa cushions.
“Emma,” Vittorio called out.
The young housekeeper stepped through the parlor door, carrying a thick binder of printed transcripts and a digital audio recorder. She did not look at the floor this time. She stood tall, her chin lifted, her eyes steady.
“Play track fourteen, Emma,” Vittorio instructed.
Emma pressed the button.
A recorded conversation from the previous Tuesday filled the room. Bianca’s voice, clear and cold:
“...I gave her three drops of the pediatric sedative in her orange juice, Marcus. She’ll sleep through Vittorio’s dinner party tonight. If she stays in the bedroom looking drowsy and incoherent, Vittorio will finally agree that she has cognitive deficits. Dr. Vance has already prepared the medical evaluation paperwork. Once he signs the conservatorship, the trust assets are under our signature.”
Bianca’s jaw dropped. She froze like a deer in high beams.
“You drugged my daughter,” Vittorio said, every syllable dropping like a hammer onto an anvil. “You gave chemical sedatives to a four-year-old child to convince me she was mentally impaired.”
“Vittorio… no… that was—that was just a sleeping aid! She was having nightmares!” Bianca screamed, her voice cracking into hysterics. “I was trying to help her sleep!”
“Dr. Vance was arrested by state narcotics officers forty minutes ago at his private clinic on Michigan Avenue,” Vittorio stated, stepping into the room. “He has already signed a full confession. He admitted to providing you with unauthorized liquid lorazepam in exchange for eighty thousand dollars from your bridal trust account.”
Eleanor’s hand slipped away from her daughter’s shoulder. The matriarch turned to look at Bianca, absolute horror in her eyes. “Bianca… tell me you didn't put that in writing. Tell me you didn't use the bridal trust account.”
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“She used the trust account, Eleanor,” Vittorio answered for her. “Which makes you an unindicted co-conspirator under federal racketeering statutes, since that account was funded by your late husband’s foundation.”
Eleanor’s legs gave out, and she sank onto the sofa beside her weeping daughter, the white fur stole sliding off her shoulders onto the floor.
