The morning sun filtered through the high floor-to-ceiling windows of the Sterling Holdings penthouse suite in downtown Dallas.
Carter sat behind his massive oak desk, his tuxedo replaced by a wrinkled dress shirt, dark circles surrounding his hollow eyes.
Victoria paced back and forth across the Persian rug, clutching a glass of water with hands that wouldn't stop trembling.
Victoria: The news outlets are running the story on every channel! 'Sterling Heir Floor-Wiped By Bruised Wife At Charity Gala'!
Carter: I don't care about the news channels, Mother! The stock is dropping like a stone!
Victoria: Did the police find her yet?! They should have tracked her phone by now!
Carter: Her phone was tossed into the Trinity River twenty minutes after she left the grand hall!
Victoria: Well, track the car! The luxury sedan she rode in!
Carter: The car belonged to a private security firm owned by Vance Global. Do you know who owns Vance Global, Mother?
Victoria: Who?! Some criminal organization she hired with our stolen money?!
Carter: Her biological father, Alexander Vance. The billionaire defense contractor we've been trying to secure a meeting with for six months!
Victoria stopped pacing, her glass slipping from her fingers and crashing onto the hardwood floor.
Victoria: Alexander... Vance? The defense contractor?
Carter: Yes! The man whose company controls seventy percent of the private security infrastructure in North America!
Victoria: But... but she told everyone her maiden name was Miller!
Carter: Miller was her mother's maiden name! She dropped the Vance title five years ago so people wouldn't treat her differently!
Victoria: Oh my God... Oh my God, Carter...
Carter: You had three of our private security guards throw Alexander Vance's daughter into a basement storage room and beat her up for a trust fund waiver!
Victoria: I didn't know! How could I have known?! She wore off-brand clothes and drove a five-year-old sedan!
Carter: Because she didn't care about wealth! She loved me for who I was, and you convinced me she was a parasite!
The double doors of the penthouse office slammed open, and David Brooks, the lead corporate attorney for Sterling Holdings, rushed inside carrying a stack of legal notices.
Lawyer Brooks: Carter! We have an emergency court order served by the federal marshal!
Carter: What kind of court order, David?
Lawyer Brooks: An asset freeze! The Securities and Exchange Commission has locked all local operations of Sterling Holdings pending a forensic fraud investigation!
Victoria: Fraud investigation?! We haven't committed any fraud!
Lawyer Brooks: Elena submitted twelve gigabytes of internal emails to the federal prosecutor at six o'clock this morning.
Carter: What emails?
Lawyer Brooks: The emails detailing how you and your mother inflated the asset values of the grand hall estate to secure a fifty-million-dollar bank loan last year.
Carter fell back into his leather chair, the color completely draining from his face as his hands gripped the desk edges.
Carter: She had those emails? How did she get those emails?
Lawyer Brooks: She built the encrypted server where you stored them, Carter! She had the root access key the entire time!
Victoria: David, fix this! We pay you a three-million-dollar retainer every year! Fix it!
Lawyer Brooks: I can't fix a federal indictment, Mrs. Sterling! The marshals are downstairs in the lobby right now with a search warrant for the server room!
Carter: What about the four hundred million dollars she transferred out of our holding account?
Lawyer Brooks: It wasn't your money, Carter. That money came from her late mother's trust fund, which you illegally co-signed into your corporate portfolio three months ago!
Victoria: It was a joint marital asset!
Lawyer Brooks: Not under Texas law when forged signatures are involved, Mrs. Sterling! She proved to the federal judge that you forged her consent form while she was hospitalized last winter!
The heavy footsteps of federal agents echoed down the marble hallway outside the penthouse suite.
Carter: She said yesterday... she said today I'd be begging for her forgiveness.
Victoria: Carter, call her! Call her right now and apologize! Tell her we'll give her whatever she wants!
Carter: She wiped the servers, Mother. She deleted our accounts, our company, and our lives. There's no one left to call.