Chapter 11: The Deconstruction of a Ring
"Don't you dare let her walk out of this room!" Margaret screamed, her voice cracking as she saw Julia turn toward the exit. She lunged forward, grabbing David by the lapels of his tuxedo jacket, shaking him with a terrifying, manic force. "David! Stand up, you useless idiot! Stop her! If she leaves this ballroom with that child and those documents, every offshore account we have will be permanently frozen by morning! The federal marshals will liquidate everything! You will go to prison, I will go to prison! Do something!"
But David Miller was completely broken. He remained on his knees, his forehead pressed against the polished floor, weeping like a child. The absolute destruction of his romantic memories, the realization that his entire adult life had been a script written by a sociopathic mother, had wiped out his capacity to function.
He slowly raised his tear-soaked face, looking up at his mother with eyes full of a sudden, deep-seated horror. "You lied to me... you told me you loved me... you told me you were protecting me from a girl who wanted our money... but you used me to destroy my own wife, my own daughter... you made me a monster just like you."
Margaret vung tay (vung tay) and struck him across the face with her manicured hand, her eyes wide with disgust. "You have always been too weak to carry the Miller name, David! Just like your cowardly father! Do you truly believe your entire relationship with her was an accident? I orchestrated that birthday party mười năm trước (ten years ago)! I placed her in your path! I gave you the script to win her over! It was never about love, you pathetic fool! It was an investment portfolio!"
Julia stopped at the threshold of the ballroom doors when those words hit her back. She slowly turned her head around, looking across the vast space at the wreckage of her marriage.
Strangely, the burning heat on her left cheek—the physical mark of David’s betrayal—had completely stopped hurting.
The physical pain was entirely anesthetized by a profound, clinical sense of pity. She no longer hated David; she saw him for what he truly was—a hollow, spineless marionette who had been hollowed out by his mother until he had nothing left but the capacity to strike out in fear. He had traded his soul for a legacy that was currently dissolving into the floorboards.
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Two uniform police officers, who had been waiting in the lobby with Daniel Carter's associates, stepped into the ballroom. They walked down the center aisle, their boots heavy against the wood. Within seconds, the click of steel handcuffs echoed through the quiet room as they secured Margaret Miller's wrists behind her back.
She didn't stop screaming. She cursed, she spit, and she fought like a cornered animal as they dragged her past the silent, staring rows of her former high-society friends. David was helped to his feet by two other officers, his body limp, his face entirely blank as they led him out in a state of catatonic shock.
