Julian: Freeze them right now, Marcus! Every joint credit line, every estate stipend, every corporate credit card linked to Vivian Vance! Do it immediately!
Bank Manager: Right away, Mr. Vance. Authorization confirmed. All accounts are locked.
Vivian: Julian! Have you lost your mind?! I am your father's widow! You cannot cut off my financial access over a maid!
Julian: A maid?! That is my wife, Vivian! The woman who owns sixty percent of the shares in this very house!
Julian dropped to his knees on the cold marble, pulling Elena's trembling, frail body up against his chest. He wrapped his suit jacket around her shivering shoulders, kissing her bruised forehead as she wept hysterically into his shirt.
Julian: You imprisoned my wife in her own home[cite: 1]!
Vivian: I didn't imprison anyone! She chose to take on household duties to pay off her father's hidden debts!
Elena: That's a lie... Julian, she lied to me... She told me you died in a plane crash over the Atlantic...
Julian: What...?! What did you tell her, Vivian?!
Julian's head snapped up toward the staircase, his eyes burning with a fury so intense that Vivian took a frantic step backward, her high heels clicking unevenly against the slick steps.
Elena: She brought a fake newspaper into my bedroom three weeks ago... She said your private jet went down... She said the company went bankrupt and the banks were taking the house...
Julian: My plane was delayed in Frankfurt for twelve hours because of engine trouble! My phone was off while I was on international calls!
Elena: She said... she said the only way to keep the bank from throwing me into prison for corporate debt was to surrender my legal power of attorney to her... and work off the estate mortgage...
Vivian: She's unstable, Julian! She lost her mind after you left! I was just trying to manage her grief!
Julian: Manage her grief?! You took her phone! You locked her in the basement servant quarters! Look at her wrists!
Julian pulled back the long grey sleeves of the maid uniform, revealing deep, dark red bruises around Elena's slender wrists and dark purple marks along her collarbone.
Elena: She wouldn't let me leave the grounds... Her personal driver guarded the front gate every night... If I didn't finish cleaning the whole mansion by six in the morning, she took away my food...
Vivian: She's exaggerating! She fell down the steps while carrying laundry! Ask the butler!
Julian: The butler you hired two weeks ago after firing our family staff of twelve years?!
Vivian: They were inefficient! I was restructuring the household expenses!
Julian: You were isolating her so no one would see her starving! You wanted her to sign over the Vance trust fund!
Vivian clutched her silk gown tightly, her chest heaving as she looked down at the shattered wine glass lying between her feet on the staircase landing. The red liquid was seeping into the grout of the white marble, staining the pristine stone.
Vivian: Julian, listen to reason! Your father meant for me to run this family! Elena is too soft, too weak! She was going to give away the family fortune to charitable foundations!
Julian: My father left this estate to me and Elena because he knew what kind of greedy viper you were, Vivian!
Vivian: I brought you up after your mother died! I gave twenty years of my life to the Vance name!
Julian: You married my father on his deathbed while he was heavily medicated, and you spent the last five years trying to bleed our accounts dry!
Elena: Julian... my head hurts... I feel so dizzy...
Julian: I've got you, baby. Hold on to me. I am never letting anyone touch you again.
Julian gently lifted Elena into his arms, carrying her slender frame as if she weighed nothing at all. He walked directly toward the grand front entry doors, past his discarded luggage.
Vivian: Where do you think you're going with her?! We have a board meeting at four o'clock! You need my signature to approve the quarterly dividend payout!
Julian: You don't have a seat on the board anymore, Vivian. And by four o'clock, you won't even have a key to this house.