PART 3
I used my master key to unlock the front door of the penthouse.
The living room was packed with over thirty members of the Vance family, sipping champagne, laughing loudly, and admiring Fiona, who sat in the center of the room on a velvet armchair like a queen receiving homage.
Julian was standing near the dining table, holding a microphone. The moment he saw me walk in, his eyes narrowed in annoyance—until his gaze drifted to my navy suit, my heels, and the small army standing behind me.
The loud laughter in the room began to die down, replaced by a confused, awkward silence.
“Sloan?!” Julian yelled, stepping forward, his face flushing red with sudden anger. “What is the meaning of this?! Who are these people? Where is my mother’s sixty-course feast?!”
Fiona stood up from her velvet chair, her pearl necklace bouncing against her chest. “Sloan! How dare you walk into my jubilee looking like that! Where is the food?!”
I stood at the entrance of the grand dining room, offering a slow, icy smile that sent a shudder through the room.
“You wanted sixty dishes, Fiona?” I asked, my voice carrying effortlessly across the silent room. “I brought them.”
I signaled to the two movers. They pushed the hand truck into the center of the dining room, right in front of the birthday table, and sliced open the duct tape on the two massive cardboard boxes.
The movers tipped the boxes over.
A tidal wave of sixty cheap, frozen TV dinners—unopened, rock-hard, and rattling loudly—cascaded across the hardwood floor, piling up at Fiona’s feet.
Gasps of pure horror echoed through the room. Fiona shrieked, jumping backward as a box of frozen Salisbury steak bumped against her designer shoes.
“What is this insult?!” Julian screamed, charging toward me with his fist raised. “You crazy bitch!”
Before he could reach me, the two off-duty police officers stepped into his path, slamming him against the wall and twisting his arm behind his back.
“Touch her and you go straight to central booking, sir,” the officer commanded coldly.
Darcy stepped forward, opening her leather binder, her voice cutting through the room like a razor blade.
“Julian Vance,” Darcy announced loudly, ensuring every relative heard every word. “I am Darcy Vance-Sterling, Chief Counsel for Sloan. As of 10:00 AM today, a petition for divorce has been filed in the Cook County Circuit Court on grounds of severe domestic abuse and financial fraud.”
Julian struggled against the officer, his face pale with rage. “This is my condo! Get out of my house!”
“Correction, Mr. Vance,” Darcy countered smoothly, handing a court document to the investigative journalist, whose camera shutter began clicking rapidly. “This condo was purchased entirely using Sloan’s pre-marital inheritance trust. We have executed an emergency court-ordered Eviction and Asset Freeze. You and your mother have exactly fifteen minutes to gather your personal clothing and vacate the premises.”
Fiona clutched her chest, trembling violently. “My money! Julian, do something!”
“Oh, Fiona,” I stepped closer, looking down at my mother-in-law with complete contempt. “You mean the money I’ve been transferring into your account every month for five years? The accounts are frozen. Julian’s credit card—the one he left with me this morning—has been maxed out to pay my legal fees.”
Julian stared at me, his eyes wide with horrified, pathetic shock. “Sloan… please… we can talk about this! It was just a joke! I didn’t mean to lock you in the kitchen!”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a small bluetooth speaker, and pressed play.
Julian’s own abusive tirade filled the room, echoing off the high ceilings:
“Tomorrow is my mother’s sixtieth birthday. You will cook a heritage feast of sixty distinct dishes. If you are missing a single one, pack your bags and get out of my house!”
Followed by the loud, chilling metallic click of the deadbolt locking from the outside.
The Vance relatives looked at Julian with utter disgust and embarrassment. Several of them quietly began heading toward the exit door, abandoning the ruined party.
“You told me to pack my bags and get out, Julian,” I said, stepping backward toward the open front door as the officers began guiding him and his weeping mother out into the hallway. “I decided to pack yours instead.”
I stood on my balcony twenty minutes later, sipping a glass of chilled champagne, watching Julian and Fiona standing on the sidewalk below in the rain, surrounded by their frozen TV dinners and plastic garbage bags of clothes.
They had wanted a sixty-course feast.
Instead, I served them complete, absolute destruction—and it tasted sweeter than anything I had ever cooked in my life.
