Victoria: You hit me! A CEO laid his hands on a high-society heiress!
Julian: I should have thrown you out of these gates months ago, Victoria!
Victoria: She was climbing on the stone banister on her own!
Emma: That is a lie, Daddy! She grabbed my wrists and lifted me over!
Victoria: Shut your mouth, Emma! The girl has an overactive imagination, Julian!
Julian: I watched you open your hands with my own eyes from the front doors!
Victoria: I lost my footing on the polished stone! I reached out to grab her collar!
Julian: You didn't reach for anything, Victoria. You let her drop like garbage.
Julian gently set Emma down behind a tall marble pillar, smoothing the wrinkled hem of her pink dress.
Julian: Are you hurt anywhere else, sweetheart? Tell Daddy right now.
Emma: My arms hurt where she squeezed me, Daddy. And my ribs sting.
Julian lifted the girl's small sleeve, revealing four dark purple bruises dug deep into her skin.
Julian: Did you pinch my daughter, Victoria?
Victoria: She refused to eat her morning oatmeal! A stepmother has to teach discipline!
Emma: She dumped ice water in my bowl because I asked for Mommy's locket!
Julian: You poured ice water on my child because she wanted her dead mother's locket?
Victoria: Sarah is dead, Julian! She has been in a cemetery for three years!
Julian: Sarah built the software algorithms that made Sterling Logistics worth billions.
Victoria: Well, she left those billions behind, and now they belong to our new marriage!
Julian: There is no marriage, Victoria. The wedding is canceled forever.
Victoria: You cannot cancel our wedding! We have five hundred high-society guests arriving on Saturday!
Julian: Tell your guests to stay home, because you'll be sitting in a concrete cell.
Victoria: On what charges?! You have no proof of anything that happened out here!
Julian: I have two eyes, Victoria. And I have the sworn statements of my staff.
Victoria: The staff works for me! I sign their weekly paychecks!
Julian: You don't sign a single thing in this mansion, Victoria.
Victoria: My father invested forty million dollars in your maritime shipping fleet last month!
Julian: Your father didn't invest forty million dollars of clean money.
Victoria: What are you talking about?! Vance Maritime holds thirty percent of your equity shares!
Julian: Vance Maritime is an empty corporate front that went bankrupt four months ago.
Victoria froze on the terrace tiles, her pink silk shirt fluttering in the cool breeze.
Victoria: That is slander! My father is a respected commissioner on the Dallas commerce board!
Julian: Your father was arrested at his private hangar thirty minutes ago by federal marshals.
The antique clock inside the library chimed three times, echoing through the tense, heavy silence.
Victoria: Arrested...?! You're bluffing! You're inventing lies to scare me!
Julian: Look at your phone sitting on the patio table, Victoria.
Victoria grabbed her gold smartphone with shaking hands, tapping the screen rapidly.
Her display lit up with forty-five missed calls and breaking news alerts from the local papers.
Victoria: 'Vance Maritime raided by federal task force... Chairman Arthur Vance in custody'...
Julian: The Department of Justice unsealed the grand jury indictment at noon today.
Victoria dropped the phone onto the stone, her eyes wide with mounting terror.