“Dalton,” Nicole rasped. The ambient chatter of the confused guests behind them had completely died down, making her voice sound incredibly loud in the sudden, suffocating silence. “Dalton… what does this mean? This house… isn’t yours?”
Dalton’s face was a mask of absolute, unadulterated panic. His eyes darted wildly from the notice to Vance’s stoic face, and finally to his bride. “Nicole, honey, it’s a mistake! It’s a prank! My crazy sister is just playing a sick joke!”
“Your sister?” Nicole whispered, her eyes widening in horror as the pieces clicked together in her mind. She looked at Dalton as if she were staring at a stranger wearing her husband’s skin. “You told my family you were an only child. You told my father you built this estate yourself. You lied to me?”
The two hundred guests, including Nicole’s incredibly wealthy, influential family, collectively held their breath.
Dalton’s grand, self-made narrative was disintegrating in real-time, exposed as a pathetic, parasitic fraud in front of the very people he had sold his soul to impress.
“It’s my house! I pay the bills!” Dalton shrieked, his voice cracking, shedding the suave millionaire persona entirely. He began to pound his fists frantically against the reinforced glass. “Open the damn door! I’ll sue you! I’ll ruin you!”
My father pushed his way through the crowd of stunned guests, his face flushed purple with rage. He rushed to the glass alongside his golden boy, pounding his fists against the pane.
“Call the police!” my father bellowed to anyone listening. “There are intruders in my son’s house! Call 911 right now!”
