“Take off the dress, Vanessa,” I ordered softly.
Vanessa looked at me, her eyes wide with terror. “What?”
“The champagne silk dress,” I said, my voice echoing in the dead silence. “My father’s trust paid for the credit card you used to buy it. You leave this house with absolutely nothing I own. Take it off.”
Vanessa sobbed, a pathetic, ugly sound. She reached behind her back, unzipping the silk dress. It pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it, left standing in her sheer undergarments, shivering violently in the massive, drafty hall, stripped entirely of her stolen royalty.
I turned my gaze to Adrian, who was pinned to the floor, his face pressed against the cold stone, weeping openly.
“And you, Adrian,” I whispered, crouching down slightly so he was forced to look into my dark eyes. “You told me you wanted to throw out the dead weight. Wish granted.”
I stood back up and looked at the commander of the security team.
“Throw them out,” I commanded. “Both of them. Do not let them take a phone, a wallet, or a coat. Let them walk the three miles down the private road to the highway in the dark.”
The security guards hauled Adrian to his feet. They dragged him and a weeping, half-naked Vanessa toward the massive front entrance. They were physically thrown out the doors, stumbling and falling onto the cold, hard concrete of the driveway.
As the heavy oak doors began to swing shut, sealing them outside in the freezing night air, the driveway was suddenly illuminated by an explosion of flashing blue and red lights.
A convoy of federal law enforcement vehicles roared up the private drive, screeching to a halt. Heavily armed FBI agents poured out of the SUVs. They weren’t arriving to respond to a domestic dispute. My father’s lawyers had already forwarded the meticulously compiled dossiers of Adrian’s corporate embezzlement and wire fraud to the Justice Department.
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